Sunroom Considerations

Questions you should ask before contracting a sunroom company.

Although many companies offer sunroom solutions almost "out of the box", the best solution - one that will give you satisfaction for many years to come - will be one tailored to your needs and the characteristics of your home.

Do I need a building permit for my sunroom?

Almost certainly. Check your local building code requirements in advance, available from your local building department. Typically, you will need to demonstrate that the new addition will not interfere with the property lines or set-backs. You will probably be asked for drawings of the projects and, should the addition affect the existing structure of your home, engineering calculations.

You should also consider that most building codes require your home to have a minimum energy performance and adding a sun room can reduce your home's overall energy efficiency. This is important if you intend to open the sunroom into your home. You may be able to avoid this requirement by maintaining a wall with, say, French doors between your home and the sunroom. The permit requested will therefore be for a "non-heated" space that does not figure in your home's energy performance. Otherwise, you should be looking for a more costly construction with high-performance glass, foam-insulated panels and joints and perhaps insulated knee-walls.

Can a sunroom have too much sun?

The answer is yes. If the design is not adequate, your sunroom will generate too much heat on sunny days and become unpleasant to be in. A good design will take account of the room's orientation and therefore amount of heat exposure. Depending on the likely heat exposure, the amount of glass both overhead and in the walls will be varied. In some cases a knee-wall model will be more appropriate than glass to ground. The heat exposure may also be modified by the type of glass used. Types of glass that reduce heat exposure are heat mirror glass and Low-E argon gas-filled glass. You should also take into account that the opposite will happen in winter. A sunroom that is not adequately insulated will lose heat quickly and run up large heating bills.

What sort of glass should be used?

You should not use normal glass. Because of the size of the panes, normal glass will break easily and cause the risk of injury. You should only use tempered safety glass capable of withstanding a significant impact such as, say, a golf ball. Tempered glass does not break into shards, but rather crumbles into tiny pieces. After that, the type of glass will depend on your budget and energy performance needs.

Single glazed windows, in which a single pane is employed, does not provide sufficient insulation for four-season sunrooms.

Double glazed windows have too layers of glass that are filled with air or gas. This provides insulation in winter and reduces the accumulation of condensation. Some companies also offer triple-glazed windows.

Low-E glass is a superior insulated glass that reduces the loss of radiant heat in the winter, and blocks heat and damaging ultraviolet rays entering your sunroom during summer. Two layers of silver in a multilayered film, which includes other chemicals such as nickel and titanium dioxide, are applied to the glass. This keeps much of the heat out of the enclosure and reduces significantly the damage caused by ultraviolet rays. In cold seasons, it keeps the heat in and the cold out.

Argon-filled glass also provides further insulation. Argon is a non-toxic, odorless gas that is six times denser than air. It is used to fill the cavity between two panes of glass thus reducing the transfer of heat.

Quick links
Patios and Sunrooms Back to home remodeling