Screened Porch – Why Did I Wait So Long?
Over the past 15 years I have designed and built over 500 screened porches. I have helped develop products and techniques for building better porches and I even wrote a book on the subject. So how many screened porches have I owned? Well up until a few months ago, none!
Twenty-eight years ago my wife and I built the house that we live in now. At that time there was a huge interest in improving home energy efficiency and in capturing solar energy to help heat the home. One of these ideas was to add a sun room on the south side of the house to collect and store heat from the sun. The idea was that by using masonry and other materials you could collect heat during the day and it would slowly be released during the night to help heat the home. As a bonus you had additional finished space to use. So we added a 10’ x 14’ all glass room on our south facing back wall.
Well in theory it sounded like a good idea. In practice it wasn’t so great. First of all, the room was barely useable - way too hot in the summer and way too cold in the winter. There were nice days in the Spring and Fall, but too few to make the room seem worth while. Also have you ever tried to clean a glass roof? We had approximately 145 square feet of glass to clean that was 15+ feet off the ground, not to mention the glass walls. With the fallout from trees and other stuff that falls from the sky it was impossible to keep the glass clean.
So why did we keep it for more than 20 years? Well part of the reason is just the natural resistance to recognize a loss. The room wasn’t cheap and there isn’t much of a market for used sunrooms. Once we decided to replace it with a screened porch there was the problem of getting a crew free long enough to do the job. Fortunately business was very good so I had to keep the carpentry crews working on projects for our customers. So several years past by after we had decided that a screened porch was what we needed.
Finally this past winter we had enough slack in the schedule that we could send a crew out to demo the sunroom and build our first screened porch. Well it took a long time, but the decision was one of the best we have ever made for our home. We love it. I’ve had a number of customers over the years say that a porch becomes the “room of choice” for most family activities. I couldn’t agree more. We eat, relax, read, and visit with guests on our porch. As a matter of fact I’m writing this entry out on the porch with my lap top.
The house, after 28 years, finally feels complete. The porch design is very different from those that I have designed for others – I have done things I have never incorporated in other porches, but I’ll save that for a future entry…….
For more on designing and planning for a screened porch visit our website, www.backyardamerica.com .
Twenty-eight years ago my wife and I built the house that we live in now. At that time there was a huge interest in improving home energy efficiency and in capturing solar energy to help heat the home. One of these ideas was to add a sun room on the south side of the house to collect and store heat from the sun. The idea was that by using masonry and other materials you could collect heat during the day and it would slowly be released during the night to help heat the home. As a bonus you had additional finished space to use. So we added a 10’ x 14’ all glass room on our south facing back wall.
Well in theory it sounded like a good idea. In practice it wasn’t so great. First of all, the room was barely useable - way too hot in the summer and way too cold in the winter. There were nice days in the Spring and Fall, but too few to make the room seem worth while. Also have you ever tried to clean a glass roof? We had approximately 145 square feet of glass to clean that was 15+ feet off the ground, not to mention the glass walls. With the fallout from trees and other stuff that falls from the sky it was impossible to keep the glass clean.
So why did we keep it for more than 20 years? Well part of the reason is just the natural resistance to recognize a loss. The room wasn’t cheap and there isn’t much of a market for used sunrooms. Once we decided to replace it with a screened porch there was the problem of getting a crew free long enough to do the job. Fortunately business was very good so I had to keep the carpentry crews working on projects for our customers. So several years past by after we had decided that a screened porch was what we needed.
Finally this past winter we had enough slack in the schedule that we could send a crew out to demo the sunroom and build our first screened porch. Well it took a long time, but the decision was one of the best we have ever made for our home. We love it. I’ve had a number of customers over the years say that a porch becomes the “room of choice” for most family activities. I couldn’t agree more. We eat, relax, read, and visit with guests on our porch. As a matter of fact I’m writing this entry out on the porch with my lap top.
The house, after 28 years, finally feels complete. The porch design is very different from those that I have designed for others – I have done things I have never incorporated in other porches, but I’ll save that for a future entry…….
For more on designing and planning for a screened porch visit our website, www.backyardamerica.com .
posted by Ernie Sears at 7:03 PM
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