The whole idea of a green house is to convert sun light into heat energy. I like the idea and thought of installing one myself. The only drawback for me would be a spike in property taxes. You can also install additional heating with hot water pipes under the floor. Also called a solarium. How about adding an indoor coi pond? They coi are beautiful and quite entertaining to watch.

Thanks I haven't got limited funds and in the photo it looks great! But I feel it could be a massive waste of energy unless you can retain heat somehow another idea would be to buy a greenhouse structure big enough to construct an insulated room at one end to retain your living heat and be able to close it off at night so you could sleep in it. I did also think of a woodburner with a backboiler to heat some additional radiators or floor so that not all your energy goes up the flue.

and you will roast in summer!
our conservatory gets very hot and that limits which plants I can keep in there then.

Our conservatory is great most of the time. It has 2 top opening windows on both the west side and the east side and leaving the door open as well on warm days means it is comfortable on most days in the summer except the very warm ones. It does lose heat through the roof in colder weather. I think there is some system of glass roof insulation which would be worth looking into if you want a proper living room type area and you can always install roof blinds..
Our patio doors open into it, so it can help to warm the dining room in cooler sunny weather and moderate the heating in summer..

One thing we did discover is that if you have a radiator - even a pretty small one - running from the house central heating system the conservatory then counts as part of the house. I can't remember the detail but it was something to do with beneficial tax rates.
But ours isn't a posh one - its more like just a plant room with an old comfy chair in it. As our house is rather dark i spend a lot of time in there with a book...wouldn't be without it.

I have a friend who has a massive glasshouse in a walled garden which is used for living as well as growing. But one side is against the wall....so a huge saving of heat there. It's effectively a huge lean-to. I think if it had all four walls and roof made of glass it would be a dreadfully expensive thing to heat....unless you were a millionaire and could have the best of everything (triple glazing, ground source heat etc. etc.). Isn't it an amazing ideal though...I would absolutely love it....low light levels affect me very badly, so being able to be 'outdoors' all the time would be ideal for me!

I have double glazed windows that were installed over 20 years ago and are now damp in between the glass sheets, so will need replacing. Very expensive.
The indoor blinds seem the best idea for a conservatory
using the thickest glass available.

I recently had 8 window units of various sizes replaced after I had massive leak and misted up the double glazing permanently. So I got them replaced for £600

I now think that the photo that I featured is a room that probably not lived in as such and just used in the evenings to sit round the fire but is basically a large greenhouse that is not included as part of the house and without triple glazing would not be a viable option. It would have to be seperated from the house to stop all the heat from the main house escaping in to its weak point which is the greenhouse.