Conservatories

Usually not. Most conservatories fall under permitted development, which means no application is needed provided you stay within the size, height and boundary limits. The main things that push you outside those limits are extending beyond the front of the house, covering more than half the garden area, or building too close to a boundary at full height. We check the position for your specific address as part of the survey, before anything is ordered.

A glazed conservatory is normally exempt, provided it is at ground level, under 30 square metres, separated from the house by external-quality doors, and has its own heating controls independent of the main house. You lose that exemption if you remove the dividing doors, or if the room is heated off the house system. Any new structural opening into the house needs approval regardless.

You will almost certainly need permission, and on a listed building you will need listed building consent as well, regardless of size. Conservation areas and Article 4 areas restrict permitted development rights, and in some cases limit you to like-for-like replacement only. Parts of Windsor, Eton, Ascot and Henley fall into these categories. This is one of the situations where the design has to start from what the council will accept, not from what you would ideally like, and it is worth involving us early.

Edwardian gives you a square or rectangular footprint, which means more usable floor space for the same money. Victorian has a faceted front and suits period properties. Lean-to works where eaves are low or space is tight. Gable end gives height and a sense of grandeur. Combination styles exist for homes where none of those quite fits. The right answer depends on your rear elevation, eaves height and the age of the property, which is why we survey before recommending.

We install across Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Wiltshire from our base at Thatcham Garden Centre, including Thatcham, Newbury, Reading, Basingstoke, Windsor, Maidenhead, Slough, Bracknell, Wokingham, Oxford and the villages between them. If you are not sure whether you are in range, call and ask rather than assuming. See all the areas we cover.

For most homes, yes. A conservatory adds usable living space for a fraction of the cost and disruption of moving house or building a brick extension, and it brings natural light into the rooms it connects to as well as the new room itself. The thing that decides whether it is worth it is the roof. A well-specified roof gives you a room you use every month of the year. A poor one gives you a room that is too hot in summer and too cold in winter, which is why so many conservatories built twenty years ago now sit unused.

Every installation is backed by our 10-year guarantee. We are an authorised Ultraframe installer, and we use Deceuninck profiles, Yale locking and Accoya where timber is specified, all of which carry their own manufacturer backing. Surveys, design, build and installation are all done by our own team rather than subcontracted out, which is what makes a guarantee worth having.

The most common uses we see are a dining room, a home office, a snug or second sitting room, a playroom and a garden room for plants. The intended use changes the design more than most people expect. A home office needs shade control and a power supply. A dining room needs the opening into the kitchen thought through. A playroom needs flooring that survives. We ask what the room is for before we talk about style.

It can, but the quality of the build matters more than the fact of having one. A well-built conservatory with a properly specified roof reads to a buyer as extra living space. A dated one with a polycarbonate roof reads as a problem to fix. That is the single biggest difference between a conservatory that adds value and one that does not.

Normally no. A conservatory does not usually count as an additional room for council tax purposes, so it does not tend to change your banding. A full extension is a different matter, and converting a conservatory into a heated extension by removing the dividing doors can change how it is treated. Worth asking us at survey stage if you are close to a band boundary.

A well-built modern conservatory should last decades with basic maintenance. What tends to fail first is the roof and the sealed glass units, which is why the specification of both matters more than anything cosmetic. The 1990s and 2000s conservatories now being replaced across Berkshire are almost all failing at the roof rather than the frames.