Diy Conservatory Sap Insulation

Conservatory insulation and SAP ratings
The modern conservatory can be quite well insulated. The floor can be lagged beneath the screed or concrete, the cavity walls can be filled with insulation, the conservatory windows, doors and even the roof can be made to the highest specification of draughtproof double-glazing, all of which will reduce the rate at which heat escapes from the conservatory. But this still can’t compete with a solid roof lagged with glass fibre and walls that are more solid insulation than glazed.

Heating a glazed room with fossil fuels, whether gas or oil fired central heating, electric radiators or solid fuel burners, leads to carbon being released into the atmosphere. Your home is, of course, only a tiny source of carbon emissions but collectively our homes make a more than generous contribution.

A glass extension conservatory has pros and cons and the cons include insulation and the lack of it, which should be dealt with by design and not by the temptation to pump further heat to make it habitable all year round. Even if you can afford the cost, the Earth might not be able to.

SAP ratings and Conservatory

All homes built since 1990 need a certificate that states what the carbon index is, a number between 1 and 10 that is a score on its energy efficiency, with 10 being the most efficient. Most homes built today would score in excess of 8. A surveyor who is qualified and authorised to calculate these ratings will be able to create one on paper based on your proposals, and since the calculation takes account of many detailed things in your home, including the heating and hot water system specification, the value is much more meaningful. Again it will show that your proposals will reduce the SAP rating – that much is inevitable – but the reduction may only be negligible and still show it to be high enough.

This is the important bit – you can build a new home today with an integral open-plan conservatory included in the design if you can show that the carbon index is at least “x” amount (”x” amount is prone to change, so you’ll need to check its value now but in 2004 it was 8). So if your rating is at least this value, it will demonstrate that your home could have been built from scratch as you are now proposing, and that should clinch it.

If it doesn’t, it might just be easier to retain an insulated door between the conservatory and keep it separate. When you think about it, the perfect solution might be to have a large opening fitted with folding doors that can be slid back on recessed floor and ceiling tracks to open the room up or kept closed to seal it off. If they are insulated, then you have answered the biggest design question with the word “both”.