☀ All-Season Sunroom Kits: Everything You Need to Know (2024)

A sunroom is a room or addition primarily intended to bring natural sunlight into the home. Large glass panels allow for vast amounts of sunlight to fill the space, creating a warm and inviting environment. Sunrooms offer expansive views of the outdoors while being sheltered from the elements. Sunrooms are versatile spaces able to be used for many different purposes. Sunrooms are typically used for entertainment, dining, relaxation, gardening, and extra living space for the home.

A sunroom can be customized to meet a homeowner’s ideas and budget. This may mean a custom-built sunroom designed by an architect and constructed by a contractor. Homeowners may also choose a sunroom kit which offers pre-fabricated materials and instructions for a DIY installation. Sunroom kits are most often made with vinyl, metal, or wood components. Vinyl and metal components are often used for three-season sunrooms while wood is used for all-season rooms.

Sunroom Living offers the highest quality all wood sunroom kit that a homeowner or contractor can install.

Sunroom kits are pre-engineered and pre-fabricated systems that provide everything to construct a sunroom on site. The kits are designed to make the construction process easy and allow a homeowner the ability to create the sunroom of their dreams without the need for building or engineering expertise.

Sunroom kits come with varying levels of customization. Kits can include: Wall panels, Windows, Doors, Roof decks, Insulation, Hardware

Some kit companies offer fixed size and design rooms, while others offer full flexibility in features and dimensions. The cost of a kit varies depending on these factors, but it is important to remember that there are additional expenses for home addition site prep, foundation work, and finishing touches.

A sunroom kit grants a homeowner all of the benefits a sunroom provides at a fraction of a custom-built sunroom. A Sunroom Living kit can be customized to any size or design complexity, comes with full permit packages and engineered drawings, and will pass all local building codes.

There are many benefits homeowners gain from adding a sunroom to their home. A sunroom increases the living space of a home, and with more square footage, it means a higher home value. A sunroom also adds market appeal to your home that prospective homeowners will greatly desire. A sunroom addition makes your property standout and your home a model for those around it.

A sunroom kit adds even more value to a home addition project. Adding a sunroom kit has a significantly lower budget than a custom-built sunroom. The cost savings will add to the return on investment for any financially-minded homeowner.

All that natural sunlight now flooding into your home has health benefits along with financial benefits. Natural sunlight increases Vitamin D levels, the “sunshine vitamin,” which has been shown to improve blood pressure, brain function, and lower cancer risk. The increased exposure to sunlight also improves serotonin levels. Serotonin levels are thought to improve well-being, sleep patterns, and overall happiness.

No matter the type of sunroom that you have, all that natural sunlight has one more hidden benefit. Natural sunlight has been shown to reduce bacteria in the home. This means healthier air quality in the home, and surfaces won’t carry as much bacteria that can cause illness and disease.

Sunroom Living kits meet the highest standards for materials and design. Our all wood rooms can be used year-round in any climate and weather; every room is designed to meet local building codes.

Sunrooms come in many styles and types. First is the exterior look of the room. Sunrooms generally come with two different roof styles – shed and gable. A shed style roof has a single pitched roof plane and resembles a “shed” or lean-to structure. A gable style room has two roof planes that meet at a central ridge. These rooms have a traditional peak and triangle appearance. You will also see conservatory style roofs, commonly used in sunrooms, which are large glass-paneled roof sections giving the room lots of natural sunlight.

With some sunroom companies, there may be options for interior design and looks. If a homeowner is purchasing an all wood room, they may be able to choose the style of beams that are used. Beam styles can be straight post and rafter beams or curved beam styles like Tudor or Victorian style beams. Wood beams like these will greatly enhance the look and feel of the room and its place in the home.

Homeowners don’t just use sunrooms as additional living space for their home. Many are looking for specific uses for their sunroom addition. Having a pool or spa that could be enclosed for year-round use is a very common sunroom project that homeowners embark on. A pool enclosure sunroom will have adequate ventilation to control moisture and, most importantly, be insulated for year-round use.

Other sunroom additions may be a bump out of an existing room, creating more space for dining or entertainment. A small bump out is a budget-friendly project to increase square footage in a home. Homeowners may also think of enclosing more than one floor into one space. A constellation room is a 2-story sunroom encapsulating a large portion of the exterior of a home, with an upper balcony and a lower floor.

Sunroom Living offers both shed and gable style rooms with any beam style available. We can design pool enclosures, constellation rooms, and offer a specific “bumpout” addition called Nature’s Bay Garden Window. All of our rooms are made with the highest quality lumber and glass, and we use only the best windows and doors.

Today, the most popular materials for sunroom construction are wood, vinyl, and aluminum. Vinyl and aluminum have become popular due to their lightweight and relatively maintenance-free makeup. Many modern sunrooms use a combination of both in their design. Wood remains the most popular material used in sunroom construction. The traditional wood look adds elegance to the home that can’t be found in a vinyl or aluminum room. Wood is great for projects that will need to withstand temperature extremes and can handle high wind and snow loads. Wood can be a more expensive alternative than vinyl or aluminum and is also susceptible to rot or insect damage.

Sunroom Living manufactures an all-wood room using southern yellow pine farmed in Texas and California. It is a hard and dense wood that resists warping and swelling. All of our beams go through a lamination process that increases strength by 10x, and the epoxy resin has a patented formula that is insect and moisture resistant. The best part is we manufacture everything in our own factory, keeping prices significantly lower for the homeowner.

Glass makes up a large portion of a sunroom. Having the right type of glass in your room can be the difference in having a three-season or all-season room. If a homeowner lives in a mild climate area, they may not need the same type of glass as someone in an extreme climate locale. Sunroom glass should have a Low-E coating that is designed to allow visible light through while deflecting ultraviolet and infrared light. A Low-E coating keeps sunlight from heating up the home in the summer. It also helps in the winter by creating a heat shield that keeps warm air from escaping.

Insulating glass is made with a space separating panes of glass for the same reason people used to install “storm windows” on their houses. Air that does not move is a good insulator. Most insulating materials are designed in a way that traps air to create small pockets of “dead air”. This is true about the fiberglass insulation in your walls, the foam plastic in your beer cooler, as well as your favorite sweater. When two pieces of glass are placed close together and sealed around the edges, it creates a layer of dead air in between. If the space between is too wide, the air has room to move, which is why all insulating glass is better than single glass windows with a storm window over it. If the gap is too narrow, there is not enough air to act as an insulator, making it less effective.

Sunroom Living uses only Low-E insulating tempered glass filled with argon gas. The argon gas adds an extra layer of insulation to the room. Insulating your sunroom is essential to maintaining a comfortable temperature, creating a barrier against outdoor weather. Just as with your home, the quality of insulation in the walls and the efficiency of windows impact energy efficiency. Sunrooms, often lacking solid wall space, require alternative insulation methods like fiberglass or foam. Additionally, don’t overlook the floor, as it’s a prime area for energy escape. By insulating walls and floors, you’ll enjoy a well-regulated sunroom while minimizing energy loss.

Windows and doors are additional features of a sunroom. Homeowners may want to add specialty windows to their project beyond the insulating glass panels. Windows that vent and allow airflow are common features included in a sunroom. Types of windows to choose from may be awning, slider, and double/triple-hung windows. Homeowners may use both interior and exterior doors for their sunroom project. Door styles include sliders, French doors, and single entry doors. Depending on the style of sunroom kit, skylights may be used to add light to the ceiling.

Sunroom Living offers the highest quality windows and doors. We use industry-leading window and door manufacturers to ensure you unmatched strength and lasting durability. All of our windows come with a tough-as-nails powder-coat finish, are extremely energy efficient, and have been very highly rated by our homeowners. All of our skylights come with a flashing kit and a 10-year installation warranty to guarantee a No Leak Skylight for the duration of your room’s use.

All of these materials are used in sunroom kits and custom-built sunrooms. With the same materials being used, it is important to understand how sunroom costs are calculated and the difference between a kit and a pre-built room.

Sunroom kits are ideal for many reasons. If you are a DIY type, saving money on labor costs can bring the overall cost of the project down significantly. Sunroom kits are less expensive than all of the materials that go into a sunroom built by a sunroom company. This means those that are seeking a contractor to build a kit benefit from having it be prefabricated. Prefabricated kits take less time to install, thus less time and money spent on labor. By taking advantage of a sunroom kit, the average homeowner can save 40-70% on the total cost of a custom sunroom addition.

Pricing a sunroom depends on many variables. When initially preparing to get a quote for a sunroom, a homeowner will want to have a few things decided. The rough dimensions of the room, the style and shape of the room, and any features they would like to see in the room (windows, doors, specialized features). Often homeowners are trying to match an interior or exterior feature from their home to the kit.

Additional costs for a sunroom kit project fall on any site prep that needs to be done before the sunroom kit can be installed. This includes any foundation work: all of our rooms require 2×6, 2×8, or 2×10 depending on the size and situation of the room. Roof and exterior wall work will also be needed; in some cases, additional roof work is required for differing roof pitches or heights.