Sunroom Construction Ideas

Converting a Room

• Converting an existing room in your house to a sunroom rather than building a new addition is probably the least expensive option, and may be the only one if your house is on a small lot and you have no room to expand. If you have a single-story section of your house on the south side, that is ideal. You can simply open up the walls of that part of your house and put several large skylights into the roof. Converting an existing part of your house saves money because there is no excavation or foundation work.

Earth Berm

• A green sunroom added onto your house can substantially reduce your heating bills. If you are able to fit a sunroom onto the east or west side of your house, you can build the south-facing wall out of glass, and build up an earth berm on the north wall. This works best if your house is on a south-facing slope. The earth berm will function as thermal mass and will help to regulate the temperature in your home, keeping it warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. The new sunroom will have to be properly connected to the rest of your house for this to work. Fans placed to circulate the air between the house and the sunroom will help to make this source of heating and cooling more effective.

Glass House

• The classic sunroom is simply a room that is made entirely of glass, including all the walls and the roof. The glass is typically held together by a metal framework. This type of sunroom would receive the highest amount of solar gain but would also be susceptible to the most heat loss if you live in a climate that gets cold. For a sunroom such as this, one option is to build it with doors between it and the rest of the house. This way, you can use it through most of the year, but when it gets so cold out that its returns are diminishing, you can close it off and leave it empty until the weather warms up again.

Solarium

• A solarium is an area that is primarily dedicated to growing plants. A sunroom is obviously an ideal place to do this. It can be as simple as a large bay window on the south side of your house, or as elaborate as an entirely new room. A solarium full of plants will green your house, aesthetically and in terms of health as well: Plants help to clean the air in your house, and they create oxygen.