A Radcliffe business is using technology inspired by NASA to help keep conservatories warm.
Matt Forrest launched Conservatory Insulations (CI) after finding a groundbreaking solution.
Conservatories are often too cold in winter and too hot in the summer, leaving them out of bounds for most of the year.
Many homeowners inherit the issue when they buy a house with a conservatory or choose to build one, because it’s a “stylish, cost-effective extension” without the need for planning permission.
Experienced salesman Matt, who set up CI 10 years ago with with Peter McDonald, said: “There are five million conservatories in the UK and they are a problem."
“Every single uninsulated conservatory is a problem.
“It’s inherent in the design of the building.
“You can envisage yourself on a nice sunny day overlooking the garden.
“But in reality it’s an expensive white elephant and there’s probably two weeks a year you could use your conservatory in its original state.
“What we’d do is give you back the room you thought you were getting in the first place.”
He said: “It started as an advert in the local newspaper in Southport where I lived at the time and we were selling everything.”
Matt then discovered true foiled quilt insulation that reflected sunlight in the summer to stay cool in the summer and retain heat in the winter.
He said: “Everyone else used a polymer silver skin which shrivelled up like a crisp packet when exposed to sunlight.”
The firm then launched CI’s cutting-edge C.H.R.I.S® system, which uses a six-layer aluminium quilt and technology researched and developed by NASA on the Apollo Space Shuttle.
It helps to reduce up to 90 per cent of heat loss through the roof and control the temperature all year round.
Matt said: “We’ve used the same principle as on the Space Shuttle but cut the size and number of layers to six to ensure conservatories don’t get too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter.
“It’s the only insulation product specially developed for conservatory roofs.”
Fitted in more than 30,000 properties from Land's End to John O’Groats, the business has expanded from just three employees to around 70.
And it has a newly refurbished headquarters.
The firm also launched Tile Your Conservatory three years ago then Elite Garden Studios last year as business booms.
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