Government rules will make new conservatories kinder to the environment

Government rules due to come into force soon will make new conservatories more energy efficient, writes Andrew Warren.

Last Updated: 6:02PM GMT 02 Dec 2008

There will be no more conservatories built using just single panes of glass. New government rules, to be consulted upon in the New Year, should mean that these home extensions will need to be built using energy efficient glass – to stop them wasting so much energy.
This will bring conservatories into line with the energy saving requirements which apply to all other newly constructed parts of a home.
At present any conventional extension to a home must be constructed to conform with the building regulations which apply to any new building. That means that the windows have to be made of highly efficient glass, which helps to keep a home warmer – and fuel bills down.
Up till now, conservatories have never been subject to the energy parts of the building regulations. That was because the official assumption had been that these were only used occasionally, mostly in the summer when there would usually be no need to consider heating them.
But new research undertaken by the Building Research Establishment has revealed that 90 per cent of conservatories are being used all the year round. This makes them rather like any other conventional house extension.
Further evidence for them being "just another part of the home" emerged from the same study. Four out of five conservatories are heated to between 20 and 22ºC each day during winter.
Frequently the heating is on for a similar length of time to the rest of the house.
Just to add to the growing integration of conservatories within the conventional living space, it has been established that in two out of five homes, there is absolutely no thermal separation from the main part of the house.
Either any doors provided at the time of construction are left semi-permanently open. Or they have been removed altogether post-installation.
The consequence is that the boiler is having to work so much harder, to keep the conservatory warm. And the heat loss for the entire building just grows.
With sales approaching 200,000 per year, conservatories are big business. Almost 10 per cent of new glass last year went into the construction of conservatories.
And the problem is that, once constructed, it is mightily expensive to attempt to upgrade the thermal performance of a conservatory.
Effectively, if it is built with very thin, single-glazed glass, it is likely to stay that way throughout its lifetime.
Around one-third of energy can escape through poor windows in a home. That is why for the past fifteen years, there have been building regulations which require that more energy efficient glazing is installed.
The glazing industry has set up a rating scheme which enables prospective purchasers to tell how effective any new or replacement window is likely to be.
It runs from A to G, and it is likely that new government requirements will mandate that level C becomes the minimum. Some of the larger window firms are ahead of such requirements, installing only A or B rated windows as the norm.
That is excellent news for anybody looking to minimise cold drafts, and so stop wasting fuel. But such regulations only apply to the conventional use of glass in a house.
So far as conservatories are concerned, the rules to date have really related to the safety and security of its basic construction.
There is a proud record for the conservatory industry to boast about in that connection – and it is well known that the vast majority of households that have acquired one genuinely appreciate having a conservatory.
Were they to be – as originally perceived – for just occasional, temporary, summer usage, there would be little reason to worry about conservatories wasting energy. But it is very clear that, if we ever did, this is no longer how we use our conservatories.
Our homes currently consume far more energy than our cars do. Even than our manufacturing industry does.
Leaving aside the familiar ecological arguments for saving energy, the less fuel any household consumes, the more money is left in people's pockets.
Let's face it. A new conservatory never comes cheaply. Sadly at present those who spend the many thousands of pounds necessary to construct one can also land themselves with hefty fuel bills to heat it long into the future.
The new rules – which should be in force in less than 18 months time – won't reduce the initial construction costs. But they should at any rate ensure that running a conservatory will cost an awful lot less in future. And be far kinder to the environment.