How much should I pay for a conservatory ?
 

Moving house soon and I'm going to put a conservatory on the house. Trying to get a ball park figure from blokes at my work and the cost seams to be so differnet from one to the next I have no idea how much I should be spending

looking for a rough cost on a 5-5/4-4 ish size PCV conservatory. Some have paid 8k and others are up at 20k ..... I'm confused ?

we paid £10k for a 4x5m 2 years ago. All labour included, except paint and flooring. We wnet for the apex roof which cost a lot more, but a low sloping roof would have annoyed me.
We could have got one a bit cheaper, but chose a firm with a good record, who project managed it (with some firms you do most of it yourself, and pay everyone seperately). You also didn't pay anythinhg until it was built and you were happy with it.
That's a good guarantee in a field with so may cowboys.

When we moved we put on a conservatory about 5m x 4m wide. White plastic. This was 3 years ago. I bought the basic kit from Wickes for £6k-ish and paid a pal £3k to put it up with me buying materials say another £3k (it adds up!). Concrete, decent bricks for dwarf walls, ceramic tiles for floor, lights, drainage, electrics etc.

If you are a competent d-i-y er then you can save quite a bit. If a company does the lot then you can easily get charged £20k and it will probably leak.

Mine could only be located on a South wall so it does get too hot even with air con on. dl

my one will be on an East wall so no real problems with heat build-up

so anywhere between 10-20k for a 4x5 ish ..... still seems a bit of a mine field ,there must be a quality difference at the ends of that scale ?

oh and I can't hang a picture straight so DIY is out

Did my own from a Wickes kit about 6 years back, 4m x5m with an "octagonal"** outer end on a dwarf wall

** Well it would be octagonal if the house wall end was similarly shaped;)

I did the whole lot myself including laying the bricks, for which I went to college to learn how:rolleyes:

Total cost, including ALL materials, skip hire, concrete mixer hire, sand, ballast, cement, tiles, plaster, electrics, heating, lighting and even audio inputs, French doors on the conservatory and changing sliding patio doors to French for the bit between the house and the conservatory, was just under £5k.

Just after I finished it, a guy I know who does d/g and conservatories professionally had a look at it and told me that if he'd done it, I'd have had no change out of £13k.

The Wickes kits REALLY are simple and effective, very strong and well thought out;)

We have a conservatory on our house and I personally wouldn't bother. Our's is about 12 foot by 15 foot, all glass and I estimate cost the previous owners at least £15K. It is virtually unusable for most of the year as it is too cold in winter and too hot in summer. I can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times I have used it since we moved in.

Don't forget using a ladder to do simple things like clean windows and gutters will be impossible once the conservatory is up.

When we move I am only moving to a house that doesn't have a conservatory.

so do you have heating in it for winter ? I'm only asking because all the ones I have seen put radiators in from your central heating. Lots of companies use fancy reflective coatings on the glass now to stop the greenhouse effect happening ? do you have blinds ?

heating up the room in summer isn't going to be a problem because it's East facing and will only ge tthe sun until noon ish.

so what's the cost of a proper sun room build instead of a conservatory ?

Well I use my conservatory as an office in the day and TV/music room in the evening. About 16 hours per day use in total.

Wall heater and oil filled electric rad quickly heat it up. Does get a bit hot sometimes but I paint Coolglas on the roof to keep the sun ray's out. Bit noisy in heavy rain!

There may be a question mark re planning permission if you plumb a heater into the house heating. Some stupid regulation and I may be out of date.

Ok for a 5m x 4m on a 600mm dwarf wall with solid base including all electrics and internal finishes excluding paint and finished floor. I would charge ball park around 10-12k. Depends on what type roof you have, if any manhole covers or rodding eyes need moving, how many doors you go for etc. That is for a poly carbonate roof (not glass) with low "e" glass all round.
You do not want to be paying anywhere near 20k for a 5 x 5. Some companies will try and charge these figures, hold out as you can get a good job done for less than 15k.



Chris.

:: Welcome to Easyfit :: worth playing around with :)

Much better off spending the extra and having an extension built.

don't do it build sun room - conservatory with a proper roof - heating / winter probs not an issue

That is like saying how much do I pay for a car.

There are a lot of variables and the more you pay generally the better product you get, by that I mean better quality glass that deals with cold/sun better than cheap glass. We have a 6x5m conservatory with a glass roof that is used a lot and is superb. Anglian put it up and cost us late teens but in the three years it has been up not a single thing has gone wrong and still looks superb. Obviously if you are handy with tools you will do it cheaper but if not I think it is false economy to buy a cheap one, if you intend living there for years buy a decent product from a decent company (do research) for a decent price and it will be money well spent.

I would never have a house without a conservatory, we will probably get something like £10k back on the house price so in the big picture not that expensive.

Thanks for the comments guys.

I'll investigate the sunroom/solid roof along with the glass roof models

My tuppence. Considered having a con built, a good quality one would have cost me at least £15k (with a nice roof to be in keeping with the older character of the house). Then would have needed underfloor heating to keep it warm and then air con, auto vents, shades etc to keep it cool. So corca £20k.
For not much more than that I had a 18x13 extension built.