Comedy fans might be aware of White Gold, a BBC sitcom set in the 1980s and focussing on the employees of a conservatory showroom. Give it a chance, it’s much better than we’ve just made it sound!
One of the continuing jokes is that the conservatories are pretty awful.
In series one, the conservatories had glass windows and even then the salesmen seemed to be shifty, pushing their products, taking payment and then leaving the hapless homeowner with a less than ideal product.
Series two, set a couple of years later, sees UPVC windows hit the market, making conservatories cheaper but also flimsier. Every conservatory they install leaks, they put this down to settling in. All the customers end up furious. They’ve been sold a dud.
That a mainstream sitcom can be based on this is because there is a universality to the experience. People who bought conservatories in the 1980s and more recently still often found the end product was very different to what had been pitched.
Even if they didn’t leak, the conservatories would be too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. They were great for extra storage space, not much use for anything else.
However, do the flaws so obvious in White Gold still apply?
The answer is yes and no.
Glass and UVPC conservatory roofs and windows are still unfit for purpose, they still leave a conservatory that is impossible to get to the right temperature. They might not leak as much as those fitted by Barry the dodgy fitter in White Gold, but they’re still not somewhere that’s great for a relaxing summer evening.
Conservatories - Changing Times
What has changed is that there is now an alternative.
Since 2010, it’s been possible to get a conservatory with a lightweight, solid tiled roof - this roof can be fitted either to an existing conservatory or as part of a newly built one. These roofs solve that key problem, they keep the conservatory within a pleasant range and make them usable all year round.
The roofs have further benefits too. They come in a full range of styles and colours and so blend in with the rest of the property, they are also proven to help save on energy bills - a saving of around £200 a year according to independent research by AECOM.
Better still, should the homeowner ever look to sell, the work in having a conservatory with solid roof installed tends to pay for itself - would-be buyers getting what is effectively a superb extension rather than a flawed bolt-on.
At Guardian Warm Roof, we developed this type of roof, it was us who created a product that was good enough to see regulations changed. Prior to 2010, conservatories had two have either glass or polycarbonate roofs, this was changed as a result of us proving the value of our lightweight, tiled roofs. The Guardian Roof is also the only roof of its kind to come with full Local Area Building Control (LABC) approval.
All of which isn’t very funny. Our roofs might not provide a great punchline, they might not lead to people camping out at the local conservatory company to complain or a salesroom full of chancers.
However, it does mean that anyone paying for a conservatory gets a great space, they get exactly what they imagined the room to be.
For comedy about conservatories watch White Gold. For conservatories themselves, choose the Guardian Warm Roof.
