We're having trouble heating our conservatory in a cost-effective
manner.

When we bought the house, the conservatory had two Dimplex heaters, and
these seemed to do the job really well, but they cost a small fortune
to run all winter, so we bought two 400W flat panel heaters which can
be painted to match the decor. We find these to be woefully
inadequate, and recently, in the cold weather, I brought in a large
electrical oil filled radiator from my garage, and that just about
keeps the chill off the place.

The Conservatory is 19'x9' victorian style, which goes up to a
peak(pitched roof). It's made of UPVC, and the roof is plastic too,
although the glass is all double-glazed units.

We want to use this as our dining room, but it's just too cold at the
moment. Can anybody suggest a cost-effective way of heating this
space? (Adding a central heating radiator is not an option according
to my wife).

Regards,
Mark

Can anybody suggest a cost-effective way of heating this

You can't heat it cheaply on electricity. You just can't. It doesn't matter
what type of electric heating you use, it will either not work, or be
expensive.

(Adding a central heating radiator is not an option according
to my wife).

What is her objection? One solution is to fit a fan convector, which is
basically a fan assisted radiator. It can go into unused space above the
door (blowing down), on the wall, or even under the floor, blowing hot air
upwards. It will be much smaller than the equivalent standard radiator and
cost about 1/4 of an equivalent electric fan heater to run.

Christian.

"MarkMc" wrote in message
ups.com...
We're having trouble heating our conservatory in a cost-effective
manner.

When we bought the house, the conservatory had two Dimplex heaters, and
these seemed to do the job really well, but they cost a small fortune
to run all winter, so we bought two 400W flat panel heaters which can
be painted to match the decor. We find these to be woefully
inadequate, and recently, in the cold weather, I brought in a large
electrical oil filled radiator from my garage, and that just about
keeps the chill off the place.

The Conservatory is 19'x9' victorian style, which goes up to a
peak(pitched roof). It's made of UPVC, and the roof is plastic too,
although the glass is all double-glazed units.

We want to use this as our dining room, but it's just too cold at the
moment. Can anybody suggest a cost-effective way of heating this
space? (Adding a central heating radiator is not an option according
to my wife).

Cheapest shot - change your wife, unless her opinion is well informed
technically (which I doubt on no safe defensible ground).

Unfortunately there is no cheap way of heating a poorly insulated space.
The cheapest way requires the energy source with the lowest unit cost taking
into account conversion efficiency. That's probably mains gas if you have
it and the most effective and controllable way is to extend the central
heating. The controllability helps the economy if done properly. You could
also consider gas convectors if you can extend the gas. Radiant heaters
will give a feeling of wellbeing without wastefully heating the structure.
A bit of background warmth and quartz electric heaters might help but
basically electricity is expensive any which way.

Jim A

"Jim Alexander" wrote in message
...

"MarkMc" wrote in message
ups.com...
We're having trouble heating our conservatory in a cost-effective
manner.

snip
..

We want to use this as our dining room, but it's just too cold at the
moment. Can anybody suggest a cost-effective way of heating this
space? (Adding a central heating radiator is not an option according
to my wife).

Cheapest shot - change your wife, unless her opinion is well informed
technically (which I doubt on no safe defensible ground).



LOL!

It'd be cheaper to install a wood burner & use nice crisp five pound notes
for fuel.....


--
Richard Sampson

mail me at
richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

RichardS wrote:
It'd be cheaper to install a wood burner & use nice crisp five pound notes
for fuel.....

That's how people heat yachts isn't it :-)

In terms of calorific value per £ I suspect that one-pound notes give
better value. Unfortunately they are getting hard to find even in Scotland.

Owain

In message , RichardS
writes

"MarkMc" wrote in message
ups.com...
We're having trouble heating our conservatory in a cost-effective
manner.


It'd be cheaper to install a wood burner & use nice crisp five pound notes
for fuel.....


We are in the middle of buying our new house. It has an old Victorian
conservatory. Running up the house wall away from it is an interesting
flue arrangement - sort of looks like half pipes set into the wall,
running up to the chimney stacks.

Appears to have been for some sort of heating stove in the conservatory.
I have wondered if something could be reinstated.
--
Chris French, Leeds

My wife requires all year 'round heating to keep her plants
alive.......

Currently, we use the conservatory for summer, but with our young
family growing up, we don't get to sit in it very often at all now, and
our dining room ajoins our lounge (which isn't that large). With the
two rooms knocked in to one, and the dining table dumped in the
conservatory, things are a bit more practical for the kids.

The floor is really nicely tiled, but I suspect it has no insulation at
all.

Oh well, looks like I need to bend over and take the Electricity bills
like a man...

Thanks for your suggestions.

Cheers,
Mark

In article .com,
MarkMc writes
My wife requires all year 'round heating to keep her plants
alive.......

Currently, we use the conservatory for summer, but with our young
family growing up, we don't get to sit in it very often at all now, and
our dining room ajoins our lounge (which isn't that large). With the
two rooms knocked in to one, and the dining table dumped in the
conservatory, things are a bit more practical for the kids.

The floor is really nicely tiled, but I suspect it has no insulation at
all.

Oh well, looks like I need to bend over and take the Electricity bills
like a man...

We also have stuck our dining table out there, but we just heat ours up
if/when we use it. It heats up in about 20mins using one of those 2KW
electric convectors from Argos (& cools down just as fast when the
heater is turned off). The heater probably isn't on for more than an
hour in most usages.
--
Tim Mitchell

"MarkMc" wrote in message
ups.com...
We're having trouble heating our conservatory in a cost-effective
manner.
snip
If it is all double glazed glass and plastic then it will be difficult to
heat economically anyway - too much heat loss.

I guess you could look at insulating at least the roof sections (with e.g.
bubble wrap products) during the winter and hanging heavy curtains around
the sides to improve the general insulation.

I assume something run off the central heating would be more cost effective
than stand alone electric heaters of any kind.

We don't heat our sun room (solid insulated roof forming the balcony floor
above) and we were told when it was built (at least 10 years ago now) that
it would have to be triple glazed to be classed as habitable all year under
Building Regs., instead of occasional use (i.e. summer).
[No doubt there are technical/regs. terms for this but that was what was
meant.]

Building Inspector basically said "You aren't going to install radiators,
are you.", obviously leaving us the option to fit them later if we so
wished.

So spend a fortune on heating the outside of your house, up the insulation,
or don't use it in the coldest part of the year.

HTH
Dave R

On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 13:56:54 +0000, David W.E. Roberts wrote:


"MarkMc" wrote in message
ups.com...
We're having trouble heating our conservatory in a cost-effective
manner.
snip
If it is all double glazed glass and plastic then it will be difficult to
heat economically anyway - too much heat loss.

I guess you could look at insulating at least the roof sections (with e.g.
bubble wrap products) during the winter and hanging heavy curtains around
the sides to improve the general insulation.

What I am wondering is whether the OP could change the roof panels for
something better.

While I was looking at conservatories I considered the insulation in some
detail, so I could afford to heat it all year (but from the CH mind)

There does seem to be quite a wide variety of roof panelling available
ranging from thin (like I have in my rented house, which is crap) to thick
multiple layer + coated polycarb. So, might be worth finding out what the
thickest panels the frame would take is and then finding the best roofing
in that range? I wouldn't expect it to cost an awful lot to remove the old
panels and have new ones cut to match then fit. Proding the frame will
take higher spec panels of course...

Another thing to consider is the floor insulation - there probably isn't
any subfloor insulation. Would the OP consider thick underlay and carpet
acceptable?

My 0.02Euro's worth..

Tim

In article . com,
MarkMc wrote:
When we bought the house, the conservatory had two Dimplex heaters, and
these seemed to do the job really well, but they cost a small fortune
to run all winter, so we bought two 400W flat panel heaters which can
be painted to match the decor. We find these to be woefully
inadequate, and recently, in the cold weather, I brought in a large
electrical oil filled radiator from my garage, and that just about
keeps the chill off the place.

All electric heaters are near 100% efficient. Some may distribute the heat
throughout the room better than others, but that's all.

You need to use a cheaper fuel.

--
*Never miss a good chance to shut up.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

All electric heaters are near 100% efficient. Some may distribute the heat
throughout the room better than others, but that's all.

You need to use a cheaper fuel.

Or, how about fitting a heat pump air conditioner? They recover heat
from outside during the winter. A good one will recover 3kW worth of
heating into the room for every 1kW of electricity used - that is 4kW
total. That brings the price of using electric heating down to gas levels.



--
Cheers,

John.

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"MarkMc" wrote in message
ups.com...
We're having trouble heating our conservatory in a cost-effective
manner.

We want to use this as our dining room, but it's just too cold at the
moment.

It's a conservatory - not a dining room. It's meant for summer use and was
allowed easy planning permission because of this.

There is a consultative paper doing the rounds in Whitehall at this very
moment on this issue.