Planning your Sunroom

When planning sunroom additions, there are many factors to consider. Where it will be, how large a space you desire, whether to build a 3 season or 4 season sunroom, budget, etc. Jeff Moretti, Marketing Manger at a Hudson Valley Sunroom Company says, "The first question has to be what is your main intent for usage of the room? Do you want a family room, a place for a hot tub, home gym, or patio enclosure? Do you want a place to garden indoors, a place to entertain guests, or do you have something else in mind?"

Knowing, in advance, what you want to use the room for can help you plan materials, size, and location. It can save you money before you even start, and guarantee that the sunroom you build will serve your needs for years to come. When you're ready to buy, consult with a reputable dealer in your area who can provide expert guidence through all stages of construction from initial sunroom design to fulfillment of your dream. Careful planning is the key to lifetime satisfaction.

Sunrooms offer light and space

I hear time and time again from homeowners the absolute need to add more light and space to their homes. For Jim and Stacy Owens in the beautiful Hudson Valley region of New York, they found the answer in a bright, beautiful, spacious sunroom.
Jim says, "when we bought this home 12 years ago, our oldest, Jill, had just been born. The house was a bit small for the three of us, but when Billy came along two years later, it became absolutely claustrophobic. We thought about moving into a bigger house, but we had really fallen in love with this one. Our house is in the perfect location, with excellent schools, and our yard is like a park. We had enough bedrooms for everyone, but we still felt a need to expand. We looked into alternatives like, a full addition, but it was costly and really wasn't what we needed. The sunroom we chose offered a more affordable expansion, but we never imagined how much it would change the way we feel in our home. We installed it off our kitchen, and I can't begin to tell you how much bigger the house felt right away. We immediatly all adopted it as the family room."
Stacy goes on to say, "For me it was all about light. I never felt like there was enough light in the back of the house. this sunroom has brightened not only the kitchen, but the whole lower part of the house. As crazy as it sounds, for me, the house feels bigger yet more cozy. Talk about home improvement! My favorite time in there so far has to be this past Christmas. We put the tree in there and finally had room for our whole family over for the holiday. I still hear from our neighbors how beautiful our tree was in our sunroom."
If you are like so many families who need more light and space in their lives, consider a beautiful sunroom from a reputable New York sunroom contractor like Vinyl Tech Inc.

Here’s an amusing little film about the “birth” of a conservatory in England. It’s educational to see the “stop action” footage of the project which shows the breadth and depth of it. The lesson here is that Vinyl Tech, Inc. can do all this work for you! Call us at: 800-758-6522 for a FREE estimate today!

Conservatory Measuring Process

This video shows the typical measurement process for home remodeling with a conservatory addition. The next stage is the conservatory base and frame construction. This footage was shot in England where home remodeling, with a sunroom, solarium or conservatory addition, is extremely popular due to the frequent inclement weather.

Patio Enclosures for the Baby Boomers

As we Baby Boomers near the age where we may be thinking of slowing down our work schedules, or even retiring, many of us are looking for ways to make some changes to our homes that were possibly not a priority earlier in our lives. Many friends of mine, have decided that investing in a patio enclosure is the smartest thing they could do to improve their environment. My friend Cathy says, "I wish I had added this sunroom earlier. It's so enjoyable to sit out here and just relax. I just enter this beautiful patio enclosure and melt. If I had known that relaxing out here in the backyard would be such a life changing event, I would have bought a sunroom years ago."

There is no better time to invest in a sunroom addition than right now. After all, haven't we earned it?

Sunrooms and Backyard Living

Looking out at the pond outside my house I am reminded of the abundance of mosquitoes here in the Hudson Valley during the summer months. They have to be the most annoying creature on the planet. They seem to love ruining a good time outdoors, and, are carriers of, who knows how many diseases? I guess there's a reason they call them bugs. So, how can you avoid bugs and still enjoy backyard living? Well, one very practical and affordable solution is to have a sunroom built.

Damary Kiefer, of Vinyl Tech Inc., a company located in the beautiful Hudson Valley region of New York, that specializes in sunrooms and conservatories, says, "You can enjoy your property so much more because you have that magnificent view of your yard. You don't have to worry about bugs. Homeowners want a place where they can be connected with the outdoors without having to actually be outside. The rooms are, in essence, home additions. They're utile, affordable, and constantly add extra value and enjoyment to your home."

Sunrooms and backyard enclosures can definitely add great benefits to your lifestyle. Sunrooms are a wonderful way to merge indoor and outdoor living. In areas like ours, with drastic temperature ranges, consider adding a small heating/air conditioning unit, which is independent of your main HVAC system, so that you can enjoy your new sunroom year-round."
Ms. Kiefer goes on to say, “ We’ve had customers who’ve opted to add a solarium rather than buy a timeshare in Florida because of the year round pleasure that it offers. Why travel elsewhere to escape the things that annoy you the most, when you can have that relaxing environment every day right in your own home? When they consider all the benefits of our sunrooms, our customers all seem to wonder why they waited so long to enter the brave new world of backyard living.”

Sunroom Living

For many homeowners, their sunroom becomes the setting for many of their daily activities. For some, it is the daily workout room, others enjoy breakfast and the paper, while others like to just sit and enjoy the outdoors without the intrusion of harsh weather and bugs. Many solariums are added as extensions to their family room, or den, offering a perfect setting for family gatherings. When it's just the two of you, it becomes the ideal place for a romantic dinner under the stars. Whatever you use your sunroom for, rest asssured that it will quickly become the most lived-in room in your house, offering serenity and protection against the rigors of daily life.

Sunrooms Combat Global Warming

There has been alot of talk about global warming and its affect on our weather. As the climate changes, it is becoming more and more important to make our homes better able to keep us comfortable, while being able to provide us with shelter from the coming heat. Many homeowners are discovering that a sunroom addition to their home is an affordable, and beautiful way to cope with the weather.

Vinyl sunrooms provide shelter from the heat while allowing the homeowner to enjoy the outdoors without bugs, or discomfort of the beating sun. Modern, space-age sunroom materials are effective in providing the comfort that your family deserves. While the earth may indeed be warming, you don't have to just sit back and feel the heat. An affordable sunroom may just be the answer for you.

See Perfect Sunroom Location!

Sunrooms are a gorgeous addition to any home. Check out this video that reveals the "perfect spot" for a Vinyl Tech sun room, conservatory or solarium.

Sun Room Installation Video!

Check out the cool video above to see a time-lapse movie of a sunroom installation. One can see the immediate value that installing a sun room provides. It's really neat to see the house "before" and "after" with the work happening in between.

Sunroom/727 Jet Project

Would you like to hear about an unbelievable home improvement project? Colorado Springs' Billie Broome and her husband, Rick, added the better part of a Boeing 727 to their house, then built a sunroom around it!

All Billie can say about Rick is: "Thank goodness he didn't bring the entire plane home." Only the front section, from the wings forward, graces their residence -- although "graces" hardly describes an sixteen thousand-pound, fifty foot-long, thirteen foot- wide, twenty eight foot-tall objet d'art.

"It feels like home," said Rick, sitting in the pilot's seat of the jet's cockpit. "It's in my will that some of my ashes will be scattered in here. I first saw the idea in a dream when I was about sixteen."

When the 727 arrived by truck at the Broomes' home in 2005, a gigantic crane had to lift the fuselage one hundred feet in the air and set it down on three specially made supports behind the house. In fourteen months, the house grew from four thousand square feet to six thousand, five hundred square feet with the addition of the new sunroom built around the plane.

Rick's work table in the sunroom is designed to look like a United Airlines ticket counter. But the sunroom decor isn't really what this space is all about. It's all about the plane. Rick's goal is to log fifty thousand hours in it over the next ten years.

He estimates that the jet/home project has cost more than $100,000 and he's not done yet. He has many other plans for the room, too many to mention he says.

"He likes anything that flies," says Billie.

Adaptable Sunroom & “Green” Screens Featured in Cornell University’s “Solar Home”.

Chris Werner was living in Washington, D.C. two years ago and he saw a home powered by solar energy on display on the National Mall. It was designed and built by students from Cornell University and was runner up in the 2005 Solar Decathlon Competition.

"I was so impressed I decided that sustainable housing was what I wanted to do and that Cornell would be the place for me to learn more about it," Werner said.

He enrolled in the Cornell College’s Architecture, Art and Planning's master of architecture program and is now on the student team creating a solar home for the 2007 Solar Decathlon.

"To make our house as energy efficient and thermally optimal as possible, every component was meticulously researched and analyzed," said Werner. "We considered properties such as recyclability, pollution potential, production waste and efficiency, and we used advanced energy modeling techniques to make decisions ranging from the size of the heat pump to the placement of windows."

Cornell’s entry features an 8-foot-long solarium with two parallel glass walls that open or close, creating an “instant” patio or sunroom; raised Tate floors that conceal plumbing, wiring and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) ducts; modular metal furniture; and touch-screen control of all systems.

Cornell’s “solar house” project is supported by grants from a range of Sponsors, including the United States Department of Energy, General Electric's Sun Division and Cornell University. It is expected that the house will be eventually sold.

Sun Rooms Protect You from the Weather!

This is a great example of how a sunroom allows you to "get outside" while allowing you to stay comfortable. Check out this video, notice the leaden sky and wind blowing! Then check out the stove inside! That's living!