A: Adding a sunroom to a home is an excellent investment and often will increase the resale value of your home more than its cost.
Also, it is a great recreational area for children. If it gets a little chilly during winter, they won't mind.
By designing and locating the sunroom properly, it can capture enough free solar heat to stay warm most of the year and help heat the rest of your home during spring and fall. Make it large enough so you can have a small container garden in one corner for fresh green salads and herbs year-round.
Most sunrooms you see in homes are contractor in-stalled, but not all.
The contractors buy the long (20-feet or more) aluminum extrusions and cut them to size. Some sunroom manufacturers also will sell the components to homeowners in precut kit sizes. Do an internet search and contact sunroom manufacturers to see if they sell their products directly in kit form.
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With some of these sunroom kits, you just have to build the base for the sunroom and assemble the components. Some frames are lightweight enough to be built over a wood deck. Often, you will find it less expensive to purchase the glass or plastic window panes locally. SunPorch offers an efficient kit with removable windows to convert to a screened room.
If you are a do-it-yourselfer, you should be able to build an efficient sunroom from scratch. Find a good location on your home which has southern exposure. This provides the most passive solar heating during winter. If you design and build one yourself, it needn't be rectangular to get the most sun. An irregular shape may get better sun exposure.
Before you begin to construct the 2-by-4 lumber framing, visit home centers and building supply outlets. They often have custom-sized high-efficiency windows that a homeowner or builder did not end up buying. You can purchase these at a discount. Once you have your windows, design the rest of the sunroom framing to fit them.
Other than in cold northern climates, you should have a solid roof on the sunroom or it probably will overheat during the summer. Installing roof vents or a venting skylight helps, but shading also may be needed. This increases the costs. Designs with slanted glass will work for moderate climates. In warm climates, always install vertical glass.
For the best comfort and efficiency, add thermal mass to the sunroom. This reduces overheating and helps it hold heat when the sun goes down.
A brick paver floor and a concrete block kneewall are effective mass.
Use planters with heavy clay pots. Add an exhaust vent through the house wall to force hot air indoors on sunny winter days.
Q: I recently installed a new high-efficiency furnace, and now I am installing a computerized thermostat. The instructions say to set it for only three cycles per hour for this type of furnace. Is this correct?
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A: This does sound correct for the most efficient operation.
Most new thermostats allow you to set the target number of on/off cycles per hour. A lower-efficiency furnace would be set for more cycles.
New high-efficiency condensing furnaces are designed to operate more efficiently in longer cycles with fewer starts and stops. This has to do with the burner, heat exchanger and blower (air flow) interrelationships.
Write to James Dulley, Duluth News Tribune, 6906 Royalgreen Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45244 or visit www
.dulley.com.
