Conservatory heating ?

Are you going to use it a lot in the winter? If regular use than underfloor is great-if pricey to fit. Relatively slow heat up too.

If occasional use in winter why not just fit dimplex electric heaters? Modern ones are neat, fast to warm up and cheap to fit.

Wet type underfloor heating is great and heats up the space quicker than the electric mats. It's probably more economic in the long term also, if it's going to be an all year living space. With the underfloor insulation methods in use now they aren't as expensive to run as they used to be. 

Good luck.

Steve

If its an all new floor then underfloor is far & away the best. Run off the existing CH via a t.stat water flow control.  

Its surprising how a luke warm floor keeps the room cosy with some additional solar heat thru the glass even in the dead of winter. 

They are good for keeping delicate plants safe, but don't try to keep it 24/7 at normal "room" temperatures. They are OK for winters night soiree's but better if you have a large double door open from the house into the conservatory.  

Underfloor heating is perfect for conservatories. Radiators are ugly. Make sure you choose heat reflective glass in the roof.

Thanks folks - that's really useful info. 

Cheers 

James

Be aware you will be largely paying to heat the sky if you have a glazed roof and walls!

G

My two penneth.....

Avoid standard radiators linked to your home central heating system.  If you have a particularly cold winter, you will want to shut off the conservatory to the house.  You won't want to heat an unused conservatory and then you risk burst pipes/ radiator damage in the conservatory. 

It is a difficult one.  We use electric panel heaters.  There are a huge variety of types to suit and probably is the cheapest install option.  This is an option, but personally, I wish we had installed electric underfloor heating in hindsight.  

The problem with panel heaters is the heat tends to rise to the roof and your feet and lower legs freeze in cold weather!

Friends have underfloor electric heating, thermostatically controlled from a electric LCD panel. No risk of freezing or leaks in really adverse cold weather and it only burns about 400 to 500 watts as opposed to our 2 panel heaters at 2000 watts each!

Install is obviously a lot more expensive, but in the long run, I would have paid it knowing what I know now.  I sat in our friends conservatory, which felt evenly heated with warm feet, legs and in a t- shirt whilst frost sat on the lawn and I would not have been able to do that in ours!

All the best.

We have a 15ft by 10ft conservatory, insulated dwarf walls with double glazed K glass windows and roof.  Whilst the windows were among the best available when installed (year 2000) modern A rated windows are much more efficient nowadays.

Heating is SpeedHeat underfloor electric heating.  

It's only 2kw underneath a tiled floor.  This works well most of the time but there are drawbacks.

It is very slow to warm up so you need a long lead time when it is very cold.  The problem is that often the coldest days are also the sunniest in winter so you then end up overheating the room when the sun starts doing its job.

Due to the slowness it is difficult to quickly boost the temperature.  At times we have had to resort to a fan heater to quickly raise the temperature.

Independent control from the main house is essential to get the best out of it as other factors like sunny days have significantly more bearing on the temperature than the main house.  Also the floor does store heat quite well so you can turn it off earlier than the main house heating.

We have switched our heating controls to Owl Intuition.  One for the house and another control for the conservatory. This is quite intelligent and uses internet based weather to factor in warm up and cool down times,  It can also be controlled over the internet in a browser or smartphone and allows for a high degree of control for on/off time periods and different temperatures throughout the day.

Richard

Could I just offer a small word of caution here. If you are heating a space it may be defined as a 'living space' for Building Regulation purposes. It will then have to comply with all the Building Regulations in the UK, insulation, fire escape etc, etc. I say fire escape because you may compromise the escape from another room in the event of a fire. 

A conservatory is defined as an unheated addition to a house and therefore does not need to comply with said regulations.

I could not comment on what you chose to do after the conservatory is installed but .......

I am assuming that it is neither big enough or tall enough to require planning consent.

Been away so not had a chance to catch up - thankyou for the additional detailed info which has given me a lot to think about. Much appreciated. I'll be back once i've digested the info 

Thanks again.

James