Conservatory – prices for renovation and running costs per m²

Especially if you want to build a heated winter garden on your house, it is advisable to list the total costs beforehand so that the construction of the winter garden does not get financially out of hand due to unforeseen costs. The total costs for the extension of a winter garden vary considerably, of course, depending on the size, manufacturer, roof shape, ventilation, equipment and darkening that is used for shading in summer. In the case of a heated winter garden, many other indispensable items must be taken into account from the outset, such as the thermally separated profiles, insulating glass windows and heating, e.g. B., but that’s not all.

However, before you start drawing up costs for your conservatory, you should consider what material your conservatory should be built from. Sure, as much glass as possible, but this glass needs a frame structure, and depending on the system, this frame structure can consist of different materials or combinations of materials, optically push itself into the foreground with ornaments or color or be so simple that it is hardly noticeable.

These are the winter garden frame constructions that influence the design of the winter garden and thus ultimately the entire house, from which you have to make a selection that will also have an impact on the price of the renovation project:

Plastic profiles

Theoretically, you can build a winter garden out of or with plastic profiles with which one square meter of “enclosed space” can be displayed for around € 250. If you just want to put a kind of greenhouse or sun lounge of a few square meters in front of a well-insulated window, without attaching importance to the insulation of the construct or whether it can be heated, this is conceivable. This small plastic frame construction is then leaned against the house wall like a kind of awning, the “glass surfaces” are also made of plastic, they are twin-wall sheets made of polycarbonate, polypropylene or plexiglass.

Apart from all the optical considerations, which we will come to in point 4 below, such a plastic frame construction is ruled out if you want to build a “real winter garden”. The plastic profiles have only a low level of strength, for more stable buildings they always have to be reinforced with a steel core, and even this only allows mini-buildings with window materials, which make any year-round use impossible. You don’t believe that, the plastic profiles from your neighbour’s greenhouse are extremely stable and would certainly also have thick panes of thermal glass? At normal temperatures maybe (for a while), but with real summer heat, these plastic profiles could then melt away like wax and buckle, so the steel core is not in there for nothing.

Plastic profiles with a steel core

Plastic profile with a steel core is the next imaginable variant, depending on the manufacturer from around € 300 for frames and windows of a mini winter garden. But even plastic with a steel core allows only very limited spans as a frame construction, not all roof shapes and not all window materials.

Frame construction made of plastic

The next frame constructions in which plastic is involved are patio roofs with a basic structure made of wood or aluminum, which then becomes a converted winter garden with a plastic front and plastic sides. This frame construction + front walls + side walls can cost a little more than a winter garden made of plastic profile with a steel core, then it will probably also not be usable all year round if you do not want to heat your garden, but it can also be much more stable and therefore more expensive :

Roof construction with aluminum profiles

For example, as a winter garden with a roof structure made of thermally separated aluminum profiles that sits like a kind of box in front of the house. The front front is closed with doors and windows made of plastic profiles, which is equipped with heat protection glazing made of double-pane insulating glass. The roof of the winter garden consists of shatterproof laminated safety glass with thermal insulation, it is supplied with drainage via an integrated gutter and downpipe made of plastic.

This is a real heated winter garden that can be used all year round, but it also costs just under € 950 per square meter – if you build it yourself.

Here is a word about the effect of a winter garden made of plastic profiles or where plastic is also used: Non-load-bearing plastic profiles may still be available in dark brown, but the material does not stay dark brown forever when exposed to the sun, it also looks at some point as right as plastic. In the more stable constructions, the window and door elements are usually only available in white, and the aluminum profile is then given a white powder coating to match – and now looks pretty much like plastic itself. There are houses that a white plastic conservatory can look good on, especially houses with a white facade, of course. There are also houses that look good with brown plastic “awnings”, even if probably not very many … But the overall impression will definitely be nicer if you use high-quality building materials that match the house as well as possible and as little plastic as possible. If you have a cute old house, it is usually possible to create a wooden frame in a suitable design, if you live in stylish concrete in the Bauhaus style, a simple aluminum frame construction can be an effective addition.

Wood kit

With a wooden kit you can get away much cheaper than with a plastic-aluminum construction. Maybe with a completely prefabricated winter garden kit, maybe also with a wooden terrace kit, which you then add walls and doors to. Terrace construction kits are available from around € 120 per square meter, you can get laminated safety glass from around € 60 per square meter if you buy it in specialist glass shops and not in a complete winter garden package (it is often a lot more expensive there) , Doors and windows then cost a little more per square meter, of course, which then has to be converted into the total price per square meter, but overall you will probably be able to “get away” with less than € 500 per square meter.

It can still be individual, even if you use a kit, especially with wood. Because here the kit is always calculated and tailored individually, and that gives you a lot of design options. You can vary the pitch of the roof, you can use two types of wood to set accents, and afterwards you can attach all sorts of ornaments or decorations to the kit.

Aluminiumprofile

The winter garden with a frame construction made of aluminum profiles is offered in different price ranges, e.g. B. depending on the material thickness, which increases with the size, and here you also have the option of purchasing a load-bearing framework for a roofing as a kit and integrating the wall construction yourself. If you only purchase a kit for a roofing, you should also inquire when buying whether the manufacturer offers additions with which you can convert the roofing into a winter garden with side walls.You can usually vary the resulting winter garden complete package in many ways. The aluminum profiles are available in many different colors, you can create really colorful constructions here, which can look extraordinary, especially on simple houses.

In this overview of the various materials and material combinations in which you can build a winter garden, and the different stages of prefabrication, it will become clear that the costs for a winter garden can only be generalized very poorly. If, as a rule of thumb, it is said that you have to reckon with around 600 euros per square meter of space, you should first ask what is included. Usually such flat-rate prices are given for the frame construction, with roof and roof covering, side surfaces and front surfaces. But every extra costs extra, from delivery outside the specified kilometer zone to the roof shape hipped roof, and with every handshake you do yourself, you save money again, from paperwork with a building permit to painting the wooden structure.

Pay attention to the additional costs in the offer

If you are now going to get the most diverse offers for your planned winter garden, you should make a list from the beginning in which you enter every single item that arises in the course of the winter garden construction.

Because there are some additional costs: In some federal states or from a certain size of the winter garden you need a building permit, and of course there are fees. You need a foundation that doesn’t come for free either if you water it yourself. If you have manual dexterity and can help you with construction, you need tools; you do not always have everything you need. You then also need a lot of small items, and accessories such as heating, shading, security and decoration also cost a lot of money.

Building individually is often the cheapest solution

Possibly the cheapest option for the conversion of your house or the extension of a winter garden is also the complete, individual self-construction. Possibly because it will only be inexpensive if you have the necessary specialist knowledge to be able to take action yourself at various stages of the construction process. A self-made wooden frame is half the winter garden, but if you have to employ an assistant for every saw cut of a beam, that is of no use to you.

However, if you build a smaller, cubic structure on your house and equip it yourself with the thermo windows that you may have purchased second-hand and at an unbeatable price, which you can possibly bring to an unrivaled insulation value with an additional pane, you have a good chance of setting a price record in conservatory construction.

Running costs for the winter garden

With the doubled-up windows just described, you might even set a record price in terms of running costs, which are added to the all-year-round winter garden. To specify a flat rate per square meter for these running costs would simply be dubious. That depends not only on the insulation values, but also on the type of heating and how often you turn on the heating at which temperature setting. It then depends on whether you operate a reading lamp or 20 plant lamps in the winter garden and maybe also on the fact that you notice in time that the old kettle from the cellar, with which you are now making coffee in the winter garden, is a real power guzzler …

Helper with the winter garden planning

Before you know which conservatory construction you are shortlisting, you will surely want to look at the costs for various conservatory constructions that have been calculated precisely for your attachment situation. You do not have to obtain several written offers for this; you can make this work easier if you let the online winter garden configurator do the work for you.

Erich Scheerer GmbH from 29365 Sprakensehl-Behren offers a configurator for wooden winter gardens at www.scheerer.de. It’s called the carport configurator. Here you can very easily put together a basic model with a transparent roof, which you can add walls, doors and windows to yourself.

There are several configurators of this type on the Internet, with different levels of convenience: Rolladen-Fußboden-Parkett GmbH Rofupa from 06116 Halle at www.rofupa.de provides a real 3-D web planner for winter gardens with an aluminum frame However, first download a plug-in to your computer before you can use this planning tool, which is certainly not what every conservatory planner wants. You actually need this software to play, maybe your son already has it on the computer, if you have access, you can configure your perfect winter garden on these pages, view it from all directions and print it out with lifelike shadows.

At www.metallbau-soeder.de (Metallbau Söder from 97723 Oberthulba) you can view pictures of different winter garden constructions in metal frame construction including variations and accessories in the winter garden configurator to find out prices, but you would have to enter your full address details on the website, which is today sure no one will do it anymore. So more of a viewing page to inspire the imagination.

The winter garden configurator from Holztechnik Lätzsch GmbH from 01728 Bannewitz can be found at www.htl-online.de, which is very clear and easy to use. Here you can view the most varied of wooden constructions for conservatories, with over 20 different construction variants a useful source of inspiration, but for prices you should again request an offer.

Finally, a warning: If you would like to request an offer, please do not use a website where you are supposed to enter your data “somewhere”. B. by phone. If you compare prices directly on websites, you also have to be careful: Often there is a lock price next to a certain kit that does not belong to this kit at all. The real price that this company will later charge you is then completely different. When it comes to the conclusion of a contract, please only include a list that contains each individual item required with price, and the corresponding inclusion of this list in the contract text, including the signature of the seller.

Conclusion
The winter garden, which can be used all year round, can arise at real costs if you are very careful and can help build a lot yourself. But you can also spend huge sums of money on your winter garden – the fastest way is to simply buy some kind of package deal, if possible from the representative who has come to the door, and preferably without knowing which individual items are included in the offer. It is similar with the running costs: Even a conservatory full of plant lamps will hardly noticeably increase your electricity costs if you use the right plant lamps. You can also afford year-round heating in the winter garden if the U-value (heat transfer coefficient) of the glazing is correct, the heating is not run at full speed and is lowered at night and when you are absent for a longer period of time. However, if you continuously heat a poorly insulated structure so that you can jump around in a bikini, you can also become impoverished by these ongoing costs.