Conservatory Heating or heaters - what should I be considering

Well first off the conservatory space should NOT be heated at all for compliance with the exempt status under Building Regulations except for some very notional heat input. However, everyone does install some form of heating as it will be too cold to use in the winter months.

Conservatory heating and heaters can be in two basic forms - temporary / mobile heating or pre-installed fixed heating. Temporary or mobile heating is probably the most common but this can become awkward to use and can look unsightly. The conservatory heaters also need storing way for the summer months during the overheating periods. This form of heating is usually either electric or Calor gas heaters.

Mobile calor gas heaters should be avoided due to the extensive moisture output that will cause condensation and the fact that they take oxygen out of the air for combustion and replace it with deadly carbon monoxide. Mobile electric heaters in the form of warm air, convection, fan assisted or infra red is probably the best option but they will have a large current draw on the wiring so you need to make sure that your electrical socket circuit can take the added current demand.

Built in heating provision will avoid the use of mobile conservatory heaters and this is usually in the form of simply extending the existing house central heating system into the conservatory with pipe work for installing wall hung radiators. Some people have gone for under floor heating but this often requires a specialist manifold to obtain lower water temperatures for the flooring pipework than for the radiators. These are usually very unobtrusive and simple to control.

Another built in system for conservatory heating is for an electric underfloor system but again these can be costly to run and are not that instantaneous. Therefore they often need to be left on 24 hours a day in order to warm up the thermal mass of the concrete floor first before they are able to output any useful heat for the conservatory.