I’d really like a sunny space – not too big, just enough to have a cup of tea in – but there are some issues:
1. We live in the Oregon Cascade range, on the west side, so we get some sun in the winter but the trees behind our lot shade the house completely from mid-Nov to mid-Feb.
2. Summers are dry (no bugs!) and quite cool except for July and August. But we have a long, cold spring and a cool, sunny fall.
So the room would be useful only from Sept – Nov and Mar – June. Still, the house faces north and I want to add the sunroom on the south, adjacent to the kitchen.
I read that sunrooms with glass ceilings are too hot in summer and too cold in winter. Also, I read that glass roofs leak, get condensation, and aren’t useful as living space. Can anyone tell me their (positive or negative) experiences with sunrooms? Thanks in advance.
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We added a sunroom onto the eastern/southern side of our house 5 years ago, and because of earthquake restrictions had to have 8 feet of shear wall on each corner. That left room for only one window on the walls that could even have one for a total of 2 windows - which was a little less than we had in mind for a sunroom. So we went up and installed 4 functioning skylights in the South and North facing roof.
I would do the same again. Even though we are in the desert, these skylights actually cool the room in the summer - open them up and run the ceiling fan and the hot air is sucked out of the skylights. Before we put in air conditioning (what were they thinking building a house without AC in the desert? I don't know) it was the most comfortable room in the house. To try and keep the heat effect down, we close the shade on the South facing ones in the summer leaving a crack for air. In the winter, we close the windows, open the shades and get plenty of light to help chase away the winter blues. We still use these skylights to cool the house, even with the AC and our bills stay quite low.
The ONLY thing I would do differently: I'd wire them up instead of making them manual. And I'd put a moisture sensor on them so they can close automatically if it starts to rain. If you do decide to go this route, make sure you get a high quality skylight and have it properly installed with the correct flashing. We installed Velux and have been very satisfied.