Sunrooms

[WVBill]

Has anyone built or had built an add-on sunroom? We currently have a deck on the back of the house and want to enclose it to become a 3 or 4-season room ("glass" or screen walls interchangable).

There are some options - DIY kits, local franchises of national manufacturers, local builders. Any experience/opinions on any of these?

Thanks.

[fivestring]

Bill, remember one thing: Decks usually can't support the added weight of a roof, walls and windows. It will probably have to have heat and/or a/c. I'm sure you'll have to have a building permit, in turn this will require plans, in turn require inspections, etc.
I would hire someone to do it right and just sit back and watch.

[Pat]

I added a slightly over 14x21 ft sunroom on previous house, participated in sister-in-laws acquisition of a larger one on her current house, and am designing one for the current home under construction. Technically, my previous one was a garden room (according to the advertisement lingo) since it did not have glass in the ceiling. It had maximum glass in the walls with transom lights over the sliding door. It was a local installation crew with a national prefab product. It worked great for us and the aluminum roof/ceiling with foam core was good in our climate (San Diego). It has a ceiling fan and electrical outlets. The sliding glass windows were removable so you could really open it up to breezes if you wanted to do so. It had two non-opening skylights,one over each house window that ended up under its roof. Kept those windows light and cheery. The only wall area not screen/glass was the preexisting house wall and under the windows in the corner where the in-ground Jacuzzi was located. I thought that could have been a safety hazzard.

We had no supplemental heat or A/C, just a ceiling fan. Of course, this was San Diego near the ocean and just about no one in our entire neighborhood had A/C. Would have needed it for a few days every 2-3 years.

Sister-in-law is in Vista CA and has a tarp over the top of her beautiful sun room. Over my objections and advice she got the beutiful glass roof with curved glass connecting the walls to the ceiling. TOOOOOOOOO HOT! She added opening ceiling sections, still toooo hot! Added ceiling fans under opening sections and still tooooo hot! Covered with a tarp that lays directly on the ceiling glass. Can roll it up and let it back fairly easily. Did this maybe twice in 3-5 years. Tarp is mildewed and rotting within first 6-8 months but the room is only useable when the roof is covered due to extreme solar heating. This is with a fairly dark tint in the ceiling glass.

I haven't converged on a plan yet for sun porch on new house. Could go with prefab or let GC build to my plans. I have pretty well nailed down the location and size. It will be 20 ft E-W and 17 ft N-S. IT will have full sun exposure on south and pretty full on east. West wall will have a 7 ft secton at north end that is covered by the rest of house. Slab floor will have same finished height as ground floor of house. It will have two doors, one to the house and one leading out onto the walk around porch on south side of great room. There will be 10 ft or so from the botom of its floor to the ground below where the basement walkout is.

To control sumer heating, I'm considering a set of louvers over its roof, likely adjustable. Since its north wall (20 ft long) is shared with house, bringing out HVAC is not very tough should we want to do that. If we decide no AC then prefab is more likely but not assured. If we condition the space (less than 50% chance) then more likey to design it myself for GC to build. Still wrestling with concerns over hail.

At the least converting a deck to a sunroom would require beefing up the area where the perimeter wall goes. I took out my raised wooden deck and replaced it with a slab when building previous sun room.

I almost forgot... I put a 33x10 ft sun room between my mom's house and garage to tie them together. 2x6 stick built. Aluminum covered rigid foam under roof deck then batting for 2x6 cavity to cut summer solar gain. Works great. Usually about 15-20 degrees warmer inside when snow on ground or cold outside. Good breezes in summer.

Pat