Natural Sunlight And The Sunroom Enclosure: What You Need To Know

Your home is your most important investment, and a sunroom can be the most important addition to your investment. Give a thought to what you need to ensure that you'll be able to enjoy your sunroom as you expect.Your home is one of the most important investment you will make in your life. It can also be one of the most expensive investments you'll make. If you decide that you need more room and would like to add an addition to your home, you have several choices. You can add an additional room built in the same manner as the original architecture of the house, or you can add on a new and elegant sunroom.

There are many reasons to choose the sunroom. With a room with walls of glass, you'll be able to see out unfettered to enjoy every bit of your back garden, your trees, birds and squirrels, or your children busily playing. You won't have to be concerned with the oppressive heat of the day, unpleasant gusts of wind should the day be a cool one, or the ever-present insects that can spoil the most beautiful of days.

Natural sunlight. That's what you get from a room with walls of glass...you won't need to bother with the harsh lights of a lightbulb if you don't feel the need. But you don't want sunlight to come pouring into the room without hindrance - you'll find yourself squinting or feeling the need for sunglasses. However, with the proper type of glass, much of the light given off by the sun can be filtered out, so there'll be no annoying glare to spoil your pleasure of the room.

A room with walls of glass need to be insulated just as do walls of wood or brick. Most sunroom companies offer their own trademarked glass - they have engineers who spend their time trying to design the most efficient glass possible.

What do you need in glass for a sunroom?

You have to consider the R-Value. This measures the thermal resistance of a material, or how easily heat travels through it. The higher the R-Value, the greater the insulation - and the lower your energy cost swill be. An R-Value of 4.0 is suggested for the very best comfort.

Give a thought to the percentage of visible light transmitted through the glass. A visible light transmittance below 60 percent is is recommended for that glare-free natural lighting, as I mentioned above

And then there's the heat of the sun. Relative Heat Gain measures the heat gained through a glazing, and, indeed, can be more important to a glass room than the R-Value. You don't want a room that will be unbearably hot or expensive to keep cool. With a type of glass that doesn't gain a lot of heat, you'll ensure that that won't be the case.

In these days, it's possible to build a sunroom in anything from a few days to a week or so. And although sunrooms are pricey - you simply must not skimp on quality - they can be less expensive than traditional brick and mortar extensions.

DIY Sunroom Kits

If you'd like to have a sunroom but you don't want to have to pay a contractor to build it for you, you can always do it yourself. Most manufacturers offer do-it-yourself kits so that the handy home owner can be in charge of its construction from the beginning. You'll want to carefully gauge your skills and stick-to-it-tiveness if you choose this route. The addition of a sunroom can increase the value of your home, but only if it is built correctly. But if you have the necessary skills, you can indeed do it yourself.

The skills needed may vary. If you're going to build your sunroom onto a pre-existing deck or porch, you won't need as many skills as you would if you were going to build an entire room from scratch - necessitating the grading and preparation of a concrete slab on which to put the new structure. And if you intend to extend your home's heating and cooling system into the new room, that calls for another set of skills.

Sunroom Indoor Furniture

There's a vast array of furniture for the sunroom. Even though a great deal of harmful sunlight will be blocked out, you'll still want to go with furniture with removable cushions, so that you can replace any that fade. Wicker is the traditional furniture for the sunroom, but there's nothing to say you can't use elegant metals or wood. The addition of green plants and an aquarium or two will certainly add an elegant touch.

Most people use their sunroom as a family room, or a place for solitude and reflection. But some people like to experiment and put their kitchen into a sunroom, or their bedroom and even their bathroom. Those are something to think about, but with the complexities of the glass and the designs of the room, you might want to just stick with the tradition uses of a room with walls of glass.

Andrew Caxton use to write on house additions and similar subjects for http://www.allsunrooms.com . Find more information and resources on DIY at his web http://www.allsunrooms.com/enclosures.html