Andrew Tune wrote:

Living in Melbourne, Australia. For US readers, hot summers (has been 110F
in the last few days) and mild winters (rarely below freezing) - latitude
of 38 degrees. Hoping to build a conservatory as an addition to the
house (i.e. not free-standing). Purpose: predominantly an outdoor room,
plant-growing is secondary. Size: 4.5m x 7m x (roughly) 4m high (i.e.
14' x 23' x 13' roughly). Orientation: E-W, with solid walls on the north
and south sides, full glass walls on the east and west.

Question: if we go for a full glass roof, won't it become unbearably hot
even on sunny winter days?

In summer yes, in winter now.

We re-roofed our flat roofed house with a roof with a slight pitch and
end up with a conservatory/sun-room. The roofing is just the corrugated
clear plastic. Warning, this burns the wood bearers. I think I could
run copper pipe under the hills and get free hot water.

Aspect is east, but it gets sun all the time in Summer and in incredibly
hot. Great in winter.

Our first step is to put a shade sail over it to make it useful in
summer. It still gets far too hot on hot days, i.e. it can heat up a
great amount of air. We are considering extraction fans for these days.
So your lantern roof might be good, but I still think you are going to
find the place gets hot - where does the air come from to replace the
air you vent (outside = hot air).

I haven't really found a useful product to replace the corrigated
plastic with as we want no tinting/colour changes as it is used for
various art purposes.

We have not yet included indoor plants.



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