Using the Internet to find an old friend.

Finding an old friend on the Internet

Some 35 yrs ago, I returned from a country, now changed greatly, Rhodesia, for my wedding in Ireland.

I brought a friend, Colin, with whom I had shared an apartment, a few pints, etc
Colin originally from London, had lived in Zambia, and Rhodesia, for many years.
After the wedding he returned to Salisbury, in an era just prior to the birth of Zimbabwe.
He has served for a few years in the Rhodesian army, and obviously was considering his future, post Independence.

He wrote a few letters but after 2 yrs, nothing.

In 1997, I started posting a few messages, on sites designed to re-unite friends, and after a couple of posts, got a message from a couple in New Zealand, who thought they knew Colin.

We exchanged information and confirmed it was the same person, and they told me he was married to Marguerite, and had two daughters.

He had worked for a few years in Mozambique, in England, and had returned to South Africa, but the information ceased there, and they had no idea of his present location.

So I posted more messages on re-unite type sites, including the name of his wife, but nothing.

Google searches, were no help, as it kept coming up with quotes from ''Colin Powell''

Recently I returned to the search, and this time did a google search on '' Marguerite and Colin''

This turned up a profile, on a South African Estate Agent Web-site of one of their negotiators.

As I read the profile, the co-incidences were immediate.
She had lived in Zambia, Zimbabwe, London and South Africa, and was married to ''Colin''

Was this the guy I had scoured the Internet for 20 yrs to trace.

So a polite e-mail to Marguerite, stating that I was trying to track down a Colin, some details of how I knew him, and an apology if I was intruding.

2 Hours later a reply, Yes its the same guy, he had often referred to our friendship, and my wedding, and she would pass on my e-mail address to him

Later that evening a message, from him, amazed that I had made contact, and starting a conversation that I hope over the months will bring us both up tp date on each others lives.

So if there is a lesson in this, its perseverance, the power of the Internet, the strength of Google, and never give up the search.

So I hope this tale will inspire someone, to retry that search for an old friend,

you never know..

Energy performance of Modern Conservatories

Energy performance of modern conservatories

Quinten Babcock and Steve Irving, FaberMaunsell Ltd, St Albans.

Summary

Conservatories are a very popular home improvement. A decade or so ago, they were seen as a key element in the design of passive solar houses, but more recently, the accepted view seems to regard conservatories as energy liabilities¹. Ironically, over that same period, the thermal performance of conservatories has improved significantly. The project on which this paper is based was aimed at trying to understand the energy performance of modern conservatories, and to develop guidance on the important parameters that influence energy performance.

Two aspects of the performance of conservatories are reported here. Firstly, winter performance, where the balance between passive solar benefit and the heating requirements for extended conservatory occupation is assessed, along with the effects of style, size, and heating setpoint. Secondly, the increased prevalence of portable domestic air conditioners has raised concerns over a possible trend towards active cooling of conservatories. Therefore, the relative effectiveness of different strategies for providing summer comfort is also reported.

Introduction

Conservatories are very popular spaces, because they provide high levels of natural light, offer excellent views into the garden and thereby create an attractive buffer space between house and garden. In 2001, approximately 170,000 new conservatories were built in the UK², and the market is expanding rapidly. The energy flows in conservatories are very complex (see example in Figure 1), involving the usual conduction and ventilation and heating system energy flows, coupled with very large variations in solar gain all within a light-weight structure. In common with most issues related to dwellings, the way the occupant uses the conservatory is very variable, and has a big impact on energy performance. The coupling between the conservatory and the house is also a significant effect, and therefore the insulation standards and heating regime in the attached house will also have an impact on overall performance.

In the heating season, the ideal conservatory design will increase the capture of free renewable energy from the sun, whilst minimising heat loss by improving the insulation standards of the glazing. Unfortunately, in summer, maximising the capture of solar energy will result in overheating, with serious discomfort problems, and the temptation to install cooling systems (e.g. a portable air conditioner unit). To illustrate the effects, Figure 2 shows the energy rating³ of different window units compared to a solid wall built to current Building Regulation standards. The energy rating accounts for both the benefits of solar gain and the heat loss via conduction – the higher the rating, the better the performance. Moving from single glazing to the double glazed units typically used in conservatories in 2003, leads to a 76% increase in the energy rating. Specifying windows that meet the standards laid down for house glazing in the current Building Regulations increases the rating by a further 15%.

 In fact this gives an energy rating very similar to a solid wall built to current Building Regulation standards.

In order to assess the energy performance of modern conservatories, a number of standard designs attached to different house types have been analysed using dynamic thermal modelling⁴. Such modelling is able to capture the rapid dynamics of the energy flows and the interactions between the climate and the conservatory and the conservatory and the house. The pattern of occupation is perhaps the single most important factor that controls the energy used to heat a conservatory. A number of typical heating scenarios were developed based on a survey of user behaviour⁵. These scenarios are summarised as follows:

􀂾 “No winter user”; in this scenario, users shut up the conservatory during the winter months and no heating is ever used in the conservatory. The house itself is heated morning and evening five days a week, and also for the rest of the day at weekends.

􀂾 “Weekend user”; in this scenario, users occupy and heat their conservatory for seven hours on each weekend day, but do not use or heat it on weekdays. When the conservatory is not used, the connecting doors linking it to the house are closed. The house is heated as per the “no winter user” scenario.

􀂾 “Heavy user”; in this scenario, the users occupy and heat their conservatory seven hours per day seven days per week. As with the weekend user, the conservatory is closed off when not in use. The house is also heated longer, using the “no winter user” weekend heating regime for all seven days of the week.

􀂾 “Opened” user; in this scenario, the conservatory is permanently open to the house. During the seven hours the conservatory is occupied, the conservatory is heated to 21°C (in the previous scenarios it is only heated to 18°C). The house heating follows the “heavy user” scenario.

􀂾 “Extension”; in this scenario, the conservatory is replaced by a conventional “brick and block” extension of the same size and shape. The extension is heated to 21°C for the same hours as the house in the “heavy user” scenario, and the heat is supplied by the house gas fired central heating system. In all the other cases, the conservatory heating is by electric panel heaters.

The figures given in the following sections focus on worst-case results for simulations based on the current CIBSE test reference year for London, i.e. heating requirements are shown for North-facing conservatories, overheating risk for South-facing. This means that a particular installation will, if anything, tend to perform slightly better than the results shown.

In Figure 3, the carbon emissions for heating the house and the conservatory/extension are shown for these scenarios, and compared to heating the relevant “house-only” scenario (i.e. no conservatory attached, with either a weekend or heavy user heating regime). In all cases, the house is well insulated, built to current new-build (ADL1 2002) standards.

A number of important points can be seen from this graph:

􀂾 Closing off the conservatory in winter and not heating will always reduce overall heating bills, because the insulation of that part of the house covered over by the conservatory has been improved. Although always beneficial, the effect is usually small, but the poorer the standard of the house, the bigger the benefit. emissi

􀂾 Heating the conservatory for a few hours a day does increase heating costs and associated carbon emissions. However, the increase is relatively modest, provided the conservatory is isolated from the house and unheated when not in use.

􀂾 If the user wants to connect the additional space to the house via a permanent opening, then a conventional extension will use significantly less energy for heating, even when heated for longer.

The studies looked at the two most popular styles of conservatory, the lean-to and the Victorian, with size varied from the small to the large end of the modular conservatory range . The effect of heating the lean-to conservatories to different temperatures was also examined, with the graph labels indicating the style, size and occupied hours heating temperature setpoint. A number of trends are clear from this data:

􀂾 When the graph is normalised for floor area, it shows that the energy needed to heat the conservatory increases in proportion to the size of the conservatory, and that style is relatively insignificant (the large Victorian is 18% smaller than the large lean-to).

􀂾 The energy used to heat the conservatory to 21°C is double that to heat it to 18°C. (In the 18°C reference case, a large proportion of the heating is provided “free” by the solar gains).

If the conservatory is heated using electricity, then the effect of size and heating setpoint are even more dramatic in cost terms. Depending on how well the house itself is insulated, the cost of heating the large conservatory to 21°C for seven hours a day in winter can be between 55% and over 300% of the cost of heating the rest of the house by gas!

Can insulation standards be improved?

There are a number of things that can be done to reduce the heat loss from a conservatory, although they will increase the installation cost a little. Firstly, ensuring that the base and the dwarf wall are built to the standards required by the Building Regulations will reduce heating energy demand by about 20% relative to an uninsulated equivalent.

The other way to improve insulation standards is to opt for better specification window units and roof system . For the windows, this usually means specifying “hard coat low-e” glass (the ADL1 2002 minimum standard for house glazing). The roof can also be glazed, or more commonly, a polycarbonate system is used. Insulation standards for polycarbonate systems can be improved by specifying more layers or walls in the panel. The current market norm is for a 3-wall system, but four and even five wall systems are available. More advanced “soft coat low-e” glazing is available, but this often reduces solar gain as well as further improving insulation standards. Consequently, as the graph shows, using advanced glazing makes little additional difference to heating energy demand because the two effects tend to cancel each other out.

Summer performance

In summer, solar gains can result in high temperatures in the conservatory. This can mean that the conservatory gets too uncomfortable to sit in, resulting in a loss of amenity. In order to increase the usability of conservatories on peak summer days, two different approaches are possible:

􀂾 Reduce the solar gain into the conservatory by using solar control glazing systems and/or roof blinds.

􀂾 Install a portable air conditioning unit to cool the conservatory.

The air conditioning option should be avoided, because it is a significant consumer of energy. Calculations show that the carbon emissions from keeping the air temperature in the conservatory below 26°C in summer is roughly twice that needed to heat the same South-facing conservatory to 18°C in winter (see left hand side of Figure 6). As important, is the fact that air conditioning alone cannot provide very good comfort, since the occupant will still be experiencing high radiant temperatures and high levels of glare. That means that although air temperatures in the conservatory may be modest, the comfort temperature will still be high because of the extreme radiant effects (see right hand side of Figure 6). It is much better to solve the problem (excessive solar gain) than to try and reduce the symptoms (overheating). The solar control glazing or roof blind options (when coupled with high levels of passive ventilation from open external patio doors and toplight windows), deliver thermal comfort almost as good as the air conditioning option, but will simultaneously reduce glare and will not use any energy.

Solar control in the roof can be provided by specifying tinted polycarbonate systems (usually grey or bronze). The downside is that the level of daylight is reduced in proportion to the reduction in the solar gain. For glass roofs, “selective soft coatings” can be put on the glass. These coatings are colour-neutral, and do not reduce the daylight to anything like the same degree as the polycarbonate systems. Roof blinds can provide performance almost as good as a full solar control glazing system, but they have the added advantage of being retractable in winter to maximise the solar benefit to offset heating demand.

Summary

Conservatories provide very attractive space, and are therefore very popular with the homeowner. However, the threat of global warming is now an established fact, and so responsible citizens must take sensible measures to reduce their consumption of energy. This paper has tried to summarise the factors in conservatory design and use that influence energy demand. The main points are as follows –

􀂾 The conservatory should not be heated for longer periods or to a higher temperature than is really necessary.

􀂾 When the conservatory is not occupied it should always be thermally isolated from the house.

􀂾 If long hours of occupancy and a space open to the house are required, a conventional extension will be much less energy intensive.

􀂾 The bigger the conservatory, the more heating it will require. A large conservatory, even if it is only heated to 18°C, can cost more to heat than the well-insulated modern house it is attached to.

􀂾 Make sure that the dwarf walls and base are insulated, and consider the benefits of specifying low-e glass in the windows and an improved standard of roof system.

􀂾 Think about how to keep the conservatory comfortable in summer. Limit the solar gain using solar control glazing or roof blinds, and ensure that high rates of passive ventilation can be achieved.

Acknowledgements

The work on which this paper is based was carried out under the Partners in Innovation scheme, and the funding support of the Department of Trade and Industry is gratefully acknowledged. The industrial partners were FaberMaunsell (Lead Partner), Airflow Developments, Anglian Home Improvements, the Conservatory Association, Cooper Research, David Bartholomew Associates, House Builders Federation, NHBC, Pilkington and Ultraframe. The support of all the partners is also gratefully acknowledged.

¹ DEn/DTI Solar Programme R&D on conservatories: review of work to 1994, David Bartholomew Associates

for PiI project initial review, 2001, http://www.fabermaunsell.com/research.

² The market for domestic conservatories, Palmer Market Research, 2002.

³ Domestic Window Energy Rating, British Fenestration Rating Council, 2000.

⁴ Sustainable conservatory design: Technical report, PiI final project deliverable, FaberMaunsell 2003,

ISBN 0-9542670-4-4, http://www.fabermaunsell.com/research.

⁵ “Creature Comforts Market Survey”, Ultraframe, 2000. References

What's an Orangery ??

Orangeries what are they  and how do they differ from a Conservatory or Sunroom.

Originating as far back as the 17th century the traditional orangery, as the name implies, was used to grow citrus fruits and was a symbol of wealth. With the correct design guidance that Julianstown Sunrooms can offer, the modern orangery tends to look more like an extension to your home, with greater brick built elevations than a typical conservatory, but with more windows than a traditional extension.

A modern orangery can be designed with sliding doors or bi folding doors on your preferred elevation bringing the garden into your home. Whether it is uPVC or Aluminium, Julianstown Sunrooms will help you design and select the correct material to create a spacious and contemporary theme to enhance any modern day home.

An orangery is an ideal extension for south facing elevations, as the flat roof perimeter provides internal shading against the midday sun and the reduced glazing area of the roof lantern with the addition of opening rooflights allows any excess heat to escape.

Contact me on 088 8205913 for further details or information.

 

 

Conservatory style and design options

The conservatory style and design should reflect the architecture of your home…

Choosing the conservatory style and design to suit your home is exciting, but you need to take several factors into consideration before taking the plunge and finalising your choice. You may be limited in your options by the room available in which you can build and it is important to review this in regards to the overal conservatory style and design size.
If you live in a Conservation Area or in a Listed Building, your choice may be defined by the architectural style of your home and the need to have a conservatory style and design that is complementary to it.

Georgian Conservatories
Georgian Architecture is the name given to an architectural style and design that was current between 1720 and 1840 and is typified by symmetry and proportions. Perhaps the best known original Georgian Conservatory still in existence is the Nash Conservatory originally built at Buckingham Palace and moved to Kew Gardens in 1836.
Due to the cost of glass and the heat that single glazing let escape, there was not a lot of glass in an original Georgian Conservatory. Today this is much different, so a Georgian Style Conservatory will only be picking up on architectural features of the period, particularly the window frames and the type of brick used to support the conservatory.
If your conservatory is being attached to an original Georgian property, these features will be particularly important so that any necessary Planning Permission can be obtained. The interior size of the conservatory may also be taken into consideration, using the “double cube” proportions so loved by Georgian architects.

Victorian Conservatories
Victorian architecture can relate to a number of different architectural styles prevalent in Queen Victoria’s long reign. In conservatory style and design the most usual forms are the confusingly named Queen Anne style and the Arts and Crafts style
.<힄໗>
A Queen Anne Style Conservatory will most likely have the following features, bay windows, a complicated, asymmetrical shape, front-facing gable, round or square towers, steep roof, textured wall surfaces, patterned masonry and half-timbering
The Arts & Crafts style of design and architecture was at its height between 1880 and 1910. It includes the Art Nouveau style and is characterised by the use of hand crafted finishes, anti-industrial processes and the lack of unnecessary decoration. An Arts & Crafts Conservatory will have all or some of the following features, asymmetrical shape, exposed construction features, e.g. wooden pegs in beams, bare stone or brick interiors, low roofline, pebble dash finish to the external brickwork and decorations and furniture influenced by William Morris or Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Edwardian Conservatories

A touch of grandeur…  The Edwardian era was a short period following the long reign of Queen Victoria. It lasted from the turn of the twentieth century in 1901 until the death of Edward VII in 1910, although some architects classify this style of architecture as Edwardian through to the end of the Great War in 1918. It is really an evolution of the Victorian and Arts & Crafts style, with greater simplicity and the use of lighter colours. Conservatories came of age in the Edwardian era. Expert conservatory designers should be able to replace an old Edwardian conservatory with modern materials or recreate the Edwardian look for a conservatory designed to complement a modern home.As with many Edwardian designs, as with this interpretation combining function through its style and design. The rectangular shape provides generous space while the roof creates a strong focal point.
Contemporary Conservatories

The evolution of the conservatory is tied to the introduction of new building materials and advances in the manufacture of glass to ever-larger sizes, the introduction of double-glazing, heat reflective glass and other innovations.
But over and above all this has been the influence of architects and designers who, having understood how to use new materials, design breathtaking public buildings to enhance gardens and the buildings they are often attached too. It is these conservatories that have captured the public’s imagination and with it created a demand for smaller conservatories for home use using similar designs.


For information on a Conservatory to suit your home contact,

Julianstown Sunrooms & Conservatories

Dublin Rd.

Julianstown
Co Meath

Mobile  ph 086 8205913