There’s a lot going on with energy-efficient windows at present but there’s not much talk about energy-efficient conservatories.
There is likely to be new building regulations come in to force in 2010 which require all windows to achieve even better thermal efficiency than they do now, but conservatories are a little different.
With windows, there’s the frames and the glass, so it’s relatively easy to measure their overall U values but a conservatory also has a roof, making the overall U value of a complete conservatory as a single unit a little trickier.
With a conservatory, we know the U values of the windows and roof glazing but we don’t yet have a method of determining the overall energy-efficiency and assigning a rating to it.
Energy conservation is a huge subject these days and one that we all take very seriously (or should do) so I would think that it’s only a matter of time before we see A, B and C rated conservatories as we now do with windows.
Once all conservatories are governed by building regulations, the foundations, base and brick walls will also be affected and will need to comply with certain insulation requirements. It will be compulsory for the base and walls to be adequately insulated, obviously adding cost to the overall project.
An alternative is to use a steel conservatory base which vastly reduces the amount of manual labour and at the same time, meets building regulation standards.
Posted by David Bingham 
