How much does an orangery cost: what the job involves and who is registered to do it

How how much does an orangery cost works

1. Establish the ratio of solid to glass. The practical test is how much of the walls and roof are glazed. A structure that is mostly glazed can still rely on the conservatory exemption if the other conditions are met. One with real masonry walls and an insulated roof cannot, and it has to meet the thermal and structural requirements that any extension does.
2. Add building control to the budget deliberately. A full building control application means drawings, a fee, inspections at set stages and a completion certificate at the end. It is a modest share of the total and it is the document that proves the room is lawful when the house is sold, so it belongs in the quote rather than in a conversation about how to avoid it.
3. Price the structural opening into the house. Orangeries are usually bought to open a room up rather than to add a separate space, which means removing a chunk of the rear wall. That is a steel beam, a structural calculation, temporary propping and often a party wall notice, and it is regularly the largest single line after the shell.
4. Decide the heating and the floor at the same time. A room that is part of the house needs to be heated like the house. Extending the wet system, running underfloor heating in the new slab, or fitting a separate unit are three different costs decided at slab stage, and retrofitting the first two afterwards is expensive.

Insurance and paperwork

Common questions

Is an orangery worth more to a valuer than a conservatory?

Generally yes, because a properly built orangery with building control sign off reads as habitable floor area and a conservatory reads as an addition. The paperwork is part of that: a room with no completion certificate is a question at the point of sale.

How long does one take to build?

Longer than a conservatory by a wide margin, because there are more trades in sequence. Groundworks, masonry, structural steel, roofing, glazing and internal finishes each have to wait for the one before, and weather affects the first half of that list.

Can I convert an existing conservatory into an orangery?

Sometimes, and it depends entirely on the base and the frames. A slab and footings designed for a lightweight glazed structure will not usually carry masonry piers and an insulated roof, and finding that out after the old roof is off is the worst way to find it out.

Registered contractors by region

• Registered roofers in the East Midlands postcode area
• Registered roofers in the East of England postcode area
• Registered roofers in the London postcode area
• Registered roofers in the North East postcode area
• Registered roofers in the North West postcode area
• Registered roofers in the Scotland postcode area
• Registered roofers in the South East postcode area
• Registered roofers in the South West postcode area
• Registered roofers in the Wales postcode area
• Registered roofers in the West Midlands postcode area
• Registered roofers in the Yorkshire and The Humber postcode area