Interchangeable glass and screen panels

The most recent issue of Inspired House has an article on a new home constructed to be open to the surrounding gardens. The caption to a picture of the porch refers to “interchangeable glass and screen walls”. Unfortunately, neither the article nor the Resources section give any more information on this. We will be rebuilding an existing screened porch, and I would like to turn it into at least a 3.5 (!) season room by having … interchangeable glass and screen panels. Can the editors give me any more information about what was done in the house I refer to? Can readers provide me any clues as to existing products we could use or construction techniques that we could apply (we’ll be doing some of the work ourselves). Thanks!
Dave Tschirley
Replies
I checked with the homeowner/architect. This is what he said:
The porch panels were made on site by our contractor. We designed the porch to have both glass and screen interchangeable panels. Each glass pane visible in the photographs is a separate piece (there are 21 pieces) framed in solid cedar. Each frame has a continuous weatherstrip and interlocks with the adjacent frame. To remove a panel requires removing only two screws with a screwdriver and pliers. Because the screen panels are much lighter, each opening between the cedar posts is one panel (for a total of 7 panels), again framed in cedar. Similarly, the two doors have interchangeable screen/glass panel inserts held with stainless steel screws.
Here's some more on the subject...this time from Jack, the homeowner/gardener:
In our planning of the house, a screened-in porch was a room that particularly mattered to us as it was almost the same thing as being outside (but without the bugs). We included in the design for the room a fireplace, which would double as a way to take the chill out of the fall or spring air but also give us a way to do outside grilling inside.
Our porch is located off the kitchen which we already knew would increase its usage due to its easy access to the refrigerator, etc. We did not originally plan that the porch would be extensively used in the winter, but we were wrong. As the house was actually being built we began to see that this outdoor room, encased in glass during the fall, winter and spring, would be an appealing place to be. What we underestimated is that this porch turned out to be the family's favorite room, regardless of the season.
We put radiant heating in the floor which allows the room to have adequate heating all winter (except for the most extreme days). We used single pane glass in panels which can easily be exchanged for screens. In fact, we have learned that not all panels of glass have to be replaced as the summer arrives. The key is to have enough screen panels to permit air to circulate freely, but we have discovered that there is an advantage in retaining glass panels (for clarity of seeing outside and as a barrier to rain when there is a storm.)
The design of the panels puts the metal tabs that hold the windows in place on the outside of the room, thus keeping the sight lines more simple on the inside.
Thanks to both of you for the informative replies. My main concern was the weight of the glass panels. Sounds like you got around this by a) using single pane rather than double pane glass, and b) making three interlocking glass panels for each screen panel. Makes sense, and the details can be figured out in the doing!
Radiant heating is a nice idea. Our porch is also off the kitchen and is reasonably large, so we practically live in it during the summer. Looking forward to stretching those months ...
Dave
dave, we used to visit a friend who had a seasonal room with glass/screen situation handled by building one wall out of wood storm doors - the type with interchangible screen and storm panels - (we still visit the friend, but she has moved) it was an easy way to achieve the result without a lot of custom carpentry...
Thanks, David. Another idea to look into, one that had not entered my head.
Dave