Average cost of a conservatory

Summary: How much does a conservatory cost, average conservatory installation cost and average labour cost.

Don’t move, improve, is the advice that many homeowners are taking due to an unpredictable housing market, choosing to invest money in their current property with building projects, rather than put their home up for sale and look for a larger house.

A conservatory is a clever and practical way to increase your living space and to add value to your home at the same time, but it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. There are plenty of ways to cut costs without cutting corners, ensuring that you end up with a fantastic addition to your home.

There are many reasons for wanting a conservatory, the most popular is simply to create a room that provides access to a garden or patio area with French doors and these are increasingly referred to as ‘garden rooms’.

Average Cost

Factors to Consider

You will need planning permission before you can build a conservatory and depending on your location, there may have to be some checks made by the local water company. This is to ensure that you don’t build over a sewer main, essential pipelines or restrict access to any of these. You may not even be aware that these run under your garden, but they should be clearly marked on your house plans if you have them.

A conservatory cannot have permanent heating installed, for example extending your central heating system into it unless you have thermostats on the additional radiators, as UK building regulations do not allow this. Free standing thermostatically controlled heaters or radiators are allowed and so you should also allow for the purchase of these when weighing up the total cost of your project.

Costs to consider

As a rough guide, £500 per square metre is what you should be paying for a budget range conservatory before you add any extras such as heating, cooling or furnishings.

The cheapest way to build a conservatory is to buy a kit and do it yourself. These are readily available from most DIY suppliers and the smallest PVCu double glazed kit will cost you about £3,500. You can of course buy the self assembly pack and have a professional put it together for you if you’re not confident, but you will need to add their labour costs to your budget.

The best all in deal is about £5,000, which will get you a basic conservatory, delivery and professional installation. Shop around for offers as there are some very good deals regarding fitting from the big name manufacturers. You might think that their conservatories are a little more expensive than a DIY store, but if they are also providing their own trained staff to fit it free of charge, then you are going to save a fair bit of money on labour costs.

If the site needs any sort of extra work you should expect to pay extra as levelling a sloped area or installation in an awkward place may take longer and therefore increasing the hours for which you are paying.

The total cost for a mid range conservatory can be worked out by allowing about £750 per square metre and this will usually have some sort of insulated glass in the double glazed units. As an example, K glass makes a conservatory more energy efficient so it will be cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. It may also come with a coated roof as standard to keep it from over heating in the hot weather.

If you go for a top of the range conservatory, this can be in the region of £30,000 or more, but that depends very much on what you choose as added extras. Roughly £1,000 per square metre will be enough of a budget to get a high quality build with the best double glazed units, air conditioning and climate control. A hardwood frame conservatory can add half the total cost again to the final price.

Anyone who has been in a conservatory knows that they can become uncomfortably hot even in a British summer and so it is a wise investment to have vertical or venetian blinds fitted, particularly if it is south facing. This can be an unexpected expense as they are far from cheap and £1,000 is not unusual for just a small 3m x 3m conservatory. Roman blinds are cheaper and you can make them yourself if you have a fair bit of knowledge and a sewing machine.

The final expense for a new conservatory is the furniture and the cost of this will depend on how you are planning to use the room. Standard patio type furniture is not hugely expensive and you can buy it very cheaply at the end of the summer when most stores are selling their seasonal stock in the sales.