Increasingly, new homes are designed and built while existing homes are remodeled to reflect the occupant’s individual tastes and lifestyle. In many instances, a home’s living environment is extended to include an “outdoor living room” that may include upscale cooking equipment, fireplaces, and fine outdoor casual furniture.
For most of the US, outdoor living rooms can only be used for a few months a year before deteriorating weather conditions drive people and their living rooms inside for cover. Given this reality, more homeowners are electing to get the best of an outdoor environment - from inside. Within sunrooms, solariums and conservatories that feature a dedicated hvac system, and floor to ceiling sliding glass windows and doors that can be opened to let warm breezes in and closed to keep foul weather out, homeowners can enjoy an outdoor environment year-round.
Enjoying a dinner under a starry night sky, or playing indoor games on a rainy afternoon are only a couple of examples of how sunrooms can enhance a family’s lifestyle.
Another great reason to owning a sunroom, solarium or conservatory is the additional living space. When entertaining a houseful of relatives or guests, you’ll appreciate the extra space. And, versus a room addition that can take several months to construct, a sunroom can be completed within days breaking ground and pouring its foundation. They can even be built to cover an existing porch or deck. Last but not least – sunrooms add loads of natural light to a home and are usually much less expensive to own than room additions.
Sunrooms can be designed to blend in with the architecture of any style of home (I’ve even seen them attached to mobile homes) and feature gabled or sloped rooflines.
There are two basic types of structures that fall under the general category of sunrooms: three-season rooms, and year-round rooms. Your basic sunroom is a three-season room, usually a framed room with a solid roof and screened windows and doors. This offers protection from outdoor pests, but not from variations in temperature. The addition of ordinary glass to offer more protection from wind and rain is a step up, but still not adequate protection from heat and cold. Adding high-performance Insulated glass can make sunrooms comfortable in temperate US markets most of the year – typically from early spring to late fall.
A year-round sunroom offers the most protection, and of course, year-round use, by combining high-performance insulated glass with a properly designed heating and cooling system. Typically, solariums and conservatories are year-round rooms. You may want to move on if the company offering them does not confirm that theirs is, since the heat buildup from direct sunlight or cold may render them useless except during temperate, overcast days when you might as well be completely outdoors.
With over 40 years experience, a key advantage of Patio Enclosures, Inc. is that its installers are employed by the company and not subcontracted. This guarantees accountability for all aspects of your final sunroom and eliminates the possibility of a voided warranty if a subcontractor does not follow established installation procedures or substitutes non-standard components.
Since glass tempering, tinting and other treatments are done in-house, Patio Enclosures, Inc. is not bound to ordering standard-sized doors and windows from third-party suppliers. Therefore, the company can employ “custom manufacturing techniques” that eliminate the need to use opaque filler material to meet custom sunroom design specifications. Patio Enclosures, Inc. sunrooms are designed to provide the maximum floor to ceiling view of the outdoors for its occupants.
Patio Enclosures, Inc. also offers a lineup of casual furnishings, blinds, shades, retractable awnings, polymer-based decks, and insulated replacement windows that can enhance the look and energy efficiency of your home.
If you are interested in adding a sunroom to your home and would like to get a FREE no-obligation in-home sunroom design consultation, contact Patio Enclosures, Inc. One of our Sunroom Design Consultants would be happy to help you plan and design a sunroom to match your home, lifestyle and budget.