Screened Porch, Sunroom, or 4-Season Room? (Lafayette: house, to buy, contractors)

[Hokieed]

What do you think is the most useful addition in Indiana?

If you have installed one, have you used it as much as you thought? How do you use the space? What company did you use? Would you use them again?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[ShadowCaver]

I would say that very much depends on:
1. location, which part of the state
2. location, which side of the house [N, S, E, W]
3. your potential usage, your desires, your lifestyle
4. possible return on investment - in enjoyment and/or resale

Living in NE section, a 4-season room or a sunroom I have been told by 5 different contractors that such would not be good use of funds. So, I added a room, an addition to the house - have pool table, stereo, and foolsball table in there, along with some plants, etc. Now, on the back of that [which is facing east, towards a field through my pines], I've a porch, that may someday screen in to minimize the damn flying blood suckers. With that said, I would still love to have a sunroom on the south facing side of the house, which would then be between house and pond. But, w/ the price of petrol going up, will probably need the funds to pay for means to get back/forth to work!


ps: make triple sure that what ever you buy/build that there is 100% guarantee of no water leaks. My FIL had a 4-season room put on [this is in Ozarks of Missouri], and they are fighting water leak problems... Remember that water will find the path of least resistance, and time is on its side.

[Hokieed]

Thanks ShadowCaver. Good suggestions.

We will be in Lafayette... is that North West, or central? how about North-west-of-central.

Anyways, the location is the south East corner of the house... for morning sun and most-of-the-day sun. We really want a nice room for plants and a place for cats to lounge and for us to enjoy the weather/sun without the mosquitos. Wow, I guess every type of room could satisfy those. We don't expect to get much of a return on investment. We really just want to enjoy the room ourselves.

Thanks for the hint on the weather/leak proofing. I didn't have that on my list of things to think of.

[mbuszu]

The nicest additions I've seen have been called both four season rooms and sun rooms. They were well-built, insulated, hvac connected, quality-windowed, and either tile or wooden-floored rooms with a lot of light exposure through walls which were more window than anything else and some skylights.

These types of additions are very pricey and per square foot they are more expensive than your house probably will ever average. That said, these rooms are versatile. You can use such a room all year, put live plants in there, use for entertaining or relaxing or even set up for gaming.

I think they are excellent. I just saw a house the other day with one of these rooms and indeed if I was in the market to buy, I'd have paid the premium they were asking for that house because the addition was so well done and functional.

The worst-designed addition I've seen was one of those sunroom kits you see advertised at the home-shows or via marketing fliers. With no HVAC connection and without quality insulation the room was unusable for much of the year as it was either too hot or too cold. Furthermore, the family had installed a hot tub within it and even with windows open much of the time, the metal interior of the room had visible signs of rusting. I could see the initial thoughts they had - obviously they wanted to enjoy their hot tub without getting eaten alive by bugs (been there, done that), but the "sunroom kit" was obviously not the right way to go in retrospect.