Replacing conservatory in Wellington....

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Bewildered

106 posts

Master Geek

#240713 21-Sep-2018 13:47

Hi,

Has anyone recently replaced, or installed a new, conservatory in Wellington?

We need to replace our existing unit (which is old and tired) with a new, slightly larger, version of the same, but I'm having a devil of a time even getting quotes....I've been trying for two months, and I've had ONE, yes only ONE, quote come back - and that was steep to say the least! It has got to the point where between the lack of responses, and the crazy high quote that I do have, I'm seriously considering changing my conservatory such that I can frame it all out of SG8 timber, clad the outside, and then installing *standard* aluminium joinery.

The conservatory is three sided - it has a 2m half-height side section sitting on a low wall, a 4m floor-to-ceiling section in the front, and small 0.9m wide floor-to-ceiling section on the other side. The rest is all backed into the existing house structure. We also have a lightweight insulated sandwich panel roof.... so this is hardly complicated...

I'd be very interested to hear if I've just had a really bad run of luck or if this is a more common problem....and for those who have had success, which company was used and were there any hassles or issues?

Cheers,

mdf

3512 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2094581 21-Sep-2018 14:38

FWIW, we have a something similar (I'd more describe it as a huge bay window rather than a full blown conservatory - about 4m wide but only 1.5m deep). I've spoken to both an aluminium joinery guy and a builder, both basically said to go with your alternative approach - build it "normally" and just install standard windows/doors.

mdf

3512 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2094583 21-Sep-2018 14:40

I suspect it may have something to do with the roof in particular. Anything without proper eaves is potentially leaky building territory?

Bewildered

106 posts

Master Geek

#2094631 21-Sep-2018 16:11

It's actually outside the weather envelop of the house as it encloses a balcony area...so even if it leaks (the current one doesn't) it wouldn't be inside the house....

Stu1

1769 posts

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#2094647 21-Sep-2018 16:55

Bewildered:
Hi,

Has anyone recently replaced, or installed a new, conservatory in Wellington?

We need to replace our existing unit (which is old and tired) with a new, slightly larger, version of the same, but I'm having a devil of a time even getting quotes....I've been trying for two months, and I've had ONE, yes only ONE, quote come back - and that was steep to say the least! It has got to the point where between the lack of responses, and the crazy high quote that I do have, I'm seriously considering changing my conservatory such that I can frame it all out of SG8 timber, clad the outside, and then installing *standard* aluminium joinery.

The conservatory is three sided - it has a 2m half-height side section sitting on a low wall, a 4m floor-to-ceiling section in the front, and small 0.9m wide floor-to-ceiling section on the other side. The rest is all backed into the existing house structure. We also have a lightweight insulated sandwich panel roof.... so this is hardly complicated...

I'd be very interested to hear if I've just had a really bad run of luck or if this is a more common problem....and for those who have had success, which company was used and were there any hassles or issues?

Cheers,

B.

Its really hard to get a new conservatory in Wellington there are only a couple of businesses that build new ones. Westview and Aluminium projects we have waited 5 months for a quote from one of them so have given up for now

Bewildered

106 posts

Master Geek

#2094711 21-Sep-2018 17:45

It really does concern me because of course the big question is, when you get a quote, and you accept it, are they any better at actually delivering the product? It is hopefully just a case of them being insanely busy, but you'd think if that was the case more people would enter the market....? Supply and demand, market forces, and all that guff...

Above all I'm worried that I have a renovation plan in train and then the new conservatory, which is part of a larger project (and a critical component) doesn't show up and everything grinds to a halt...

Brunzy

2016 posts

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Trusted

#2094725 21-Sep-2018 18:20

I went through the same process when I bought my first house, we were at a home show looking and a guy insisted on coming out to give us a quote. From memory it was around $11/$12k for a fairly long (8m) and I built it out of cedar, material cost around $2k, although that was 30 years ago
I’ve built another 3 since , cedar has become too expensive, last one I used pine and stained it with CD 50.
If you can’t do it yourself I’d ask a builder rather than a conservatory company .

Stu1

1769 posts

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#2094726 21-Sep-2018 18:20

Bewildered:

It really does concern me because of course the big question is, when you get a quote, and you accept it, are they any better at actually delivering the product? It is hopefully just a case of them being insanely busy, but you'd think if that was the case more people would enter the market....? Supply and demand, market forces, and all that guff...

Above all I'm worried that I have a renovation plan in train and then the new conservatory, which is part of a larger project (and a critical component) doesn't show up and everything grinds to a halt...

i am amazed how many business do not make conservatories now, whether its a compliance or code difficulty in the wellington region. The only guy we could get to come out to quote has that much work on its taken months to get back to us with a quote. We were looking at conservatory as a cheaper option as our extension plans costing came in 50% higher than the original estimate. I ended up spending 8 grand on some pretty bits off paper i cant use, even got resource consent granted as i worked out 30 to 40% variance in the build not over 50%. The building industry is crazy at the moment, talked to an architect at a home show one of the clients in town had a quality surveyor come up with total build cost of 400k when the job went out for tender the cheapest tender came in around 735k so i dont feel soo bad.

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Disrespective

1925 posts

Uber Geek

#2095546 24-Sep-2018 14:35

We struggle to get quotes for house joinery at work at the moment. And when we do get them, it's often much more expensive than anticipated. We most recently had to get joinery made in Nelson and shipped over on a truck to Wellington. It was 2/3 the cost of a local quote we had.

I'm not surprised it's hard to get a conservatory priced as it's not just bog standard work for them any more. They can't keep up with simple square windows, doing anything different just isn't worth their time.

Stu1

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#2095602 24-Sep-2018 15:34

Disrespective:
We struggle to get quotes for house joinery at work at the moment. And when we do get them, it's often much more expensive than anticipated. We most recently had to get joinery made in Nelson and shipped over on a truck to Wellington. It was 2/3 the cost of a local quote we had.

I'm not surprised it's hard to get a conservatory priced as it's not just bog standard work for them any more. They can't keep up with simple square windows, doing anything different just isn't worth their time.

It's crazy taking 3 months to get a window built we are lucky as got told if it was a week later would have to wait to the new year as fully booked. Wallaceville estate is massive for Upper Hutt plus Avalon can see why they are doing busy at the moment