Four season sun room in northern climates

[oneighty]

anybody have one? How is it in the winter time?

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[Kathy in Cambridge]

1. My parent's house has one and it's great except in the dead of winter

when the sun is really low in the sky. My mother really says it's a three season sun room. :-)

[oneighty]

2. I was afraid of that!

Does your mother heat it in the winter? If so, how?

Thank you Ms. Kathy in Cambridge

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[GCP]

3. We have one - it's unusable in a Massachusetts winter

We don't have heat in it and the sun isn't sufficient to warm it up. As Kathy said, it's a 3 season sun room.

[oneighty]

6. How many walls

do you have exposed to the weather? In my case it would be only two walls exposed to the weather. The more or less south facing wall will get pretty good winter sun.

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[achtung_circus]

4. Not a sun room, per se

but I built a house in Alberta, a manufactured home, placed on a foundation on our acreage. The south side was kitchen and living room. The kitchen had the normal "kitchen" windows, the rest was French doors to the deck and a wall of glass. It was site-specific in that about 20 ft from the south wall was a deciduous bush, mostly Aspen trees. In the summer the leaves provided shade and the cooling load (fans and open windows) was low. In the winter, with the leaves off the trees the sun came blasting in. We were prone to power outages, up to 3 days. A combination of the solar heating and the gas fireplace kept it livable.

No one thought it was a good idea when it was under construction- it's got too many windows. But once it was on site, without exception, people said it was stunning. And warm.

[HereSince1628]

5. I'm sitting in the one I helped designed, windows on south and west

the northside is a solid wall (no sky lights). Because of all the glass it's noticeably cooler than the rest of the house in the winter, and because of the heat loss we keep the doors to the rest of the house closed.

But because of the sunlight it's wonderful. It is much much superior to being hunkered down in a gloomy living room on the northside of the house with islands of incandescent glowing, or in a colder basement recreation room.

[oneighty]

7. Mine would have

windows on south and west. The other walls are part of the existing house. Are you on a concrete floor? Or wood? Carpet? I would not want full skylights.

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[HereSince1628]

10. Sorry to be late in responding...ours has a carpet floor over a crawl

space. It made putting heat and electricity into the room much easier.

It wasn't much more expensive to dig out a crawl space than to just dig out footings for a frost wall.

[oneighty]

11. Thank you HereSince 1628

I am pretty well decided now to just add on an ordinary room. It will be safer that way.

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[Auntie Bush]

8. I have one in VT.

Often gets too hot to use in the summer. Freezes in winter.
Fabulous in the Spring and Fall. So light and cheery and warm when sunny. We used to heat it but it was never adequate and can get expensive. We also need a new vent for summer. They are also difficult to keep from leaking.

If you have a good conscientious builder who will do a good job and seal everything well, knows what he's doing so it won't leak, use the best insulated windows, have a good heater and venting system and be able to close it off from the rest of the house...you'll love it!

We've had a lot of problems with ours...lousy builder. But I would recommend it if you build a quality room and don't skimp on anything.
Make sure you get it in writing that your builder will guarantee it from leaking and take all responsibility for repairs.

Good luck!

[oneighty]

9. Thank you Auntie Bush

You have voiced my fears. I think I will likely stick to a conventional add on. I do need a reliable year around room. Not too hot not to cold-but just right.

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