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Sunrooms can bring sunlight and air into your home or office without having to sacrifice the comfort of being in indoors. They can make fantastic indoor garden areas, especially in cooler climates, extending the flowering life of plants, and even enabling you grow some species that you other wise would not be able to grow. They can be custom-designed or even purchased as a stand alone kit. When planning your sunroom, decide how you are going to use your new room. If you want to plan on extending your living room or kitchen area, then you will have different construction requirements than if you wanted to install say, a hot tub or a solarium hothouse for your plants.
Location Sunrooms should be designed so that the main windows face south in the northern hemisphere, and north in the southern hemisphere. be aware that Solar north/south may well have a different track than magnetic north/south, so observe how the sun moves across your house. Once you have found the best location for the sunroom, start your plans.
Roof and Sides Ttypical rooms have a glass roof and sides, however circumstances should obviously dictate your choice in this matter. If your sunroom is going to have a lot of exposure to the sun, you may want to consider partial overhead glass or just making the walls glass. Simlarly, if you live in alpine country and your sunroom will be located below a sloped roof, you will want to consider partial overhead glass and roofing materials, instead of just glass by itself. If your sunroom is an extension of your house, perhaps consider using standard roofing materials like asphalt tile, wood shingles or corrugated steel.
Skylights Skylights are a popular choice because they bring additional light witout having to ahve entire walls or roofs made of glass. If you want a hot tub or intend growing plants, then consider enclosing the entire space with glass.
Knee Walls If you want your sunroom to have more of a real room feeling , you might choose a knee wall. A knee walll is a short wall about knee height that is the lower part of the outside wall. An advantage of a knee wall is that you can also run electric lines through a knee wall. This is something you can't do with glass.
Window Options
Operable windows are an inexpensive way to ventilate your area. To reduce heat, outside shade screens can be placed over the glass of the sunroom. You should be aware that as the amount of glass used in a house increases, energy efficiency decreases dramatically - even though a great deal of effort has been made in recent years to improve the glazing energy efficiency. Today, windows are often double glazed or insulated. Low-E glazing has an incredibly thin metallic film between two glass panes, greatly reducing UV and heat (energy) transfer through the glass.
Door Options Sliding doors are very popular. They allow in plenty of light while sealing out the elements. Sliding doors are great for space saving too.
Vents Many experts recommend installing ceiling fans or vents in sunrooms to draw heat up and out of the house more efficiently.In warmer areas, one should be careful not to burn plants or dehydrate them, as this is very easy to do. In warmer climates, cactii can be a good choice for sunrooms.
Electricity Remember to include plenty of electrical switches and outlets when planning your sunroom renovation or building. See tips on r building and renovation and hiring contractors if you are not a handy kind of person who is intending to build your sunroom yourself. |