NancyAndFred.Com

Our Sunporch

Why?

This project was one that Fred actually brought on himself. Nancy is a major plant person and every winter the living room is taken over by all the greenery that can't survive cold weather. Basically, it becomes a jungle. During a moment of weakness, a suggestion was made that the rear screened porch could probably be enclosed as a sunporch. Usage of the porch had fallen off significantly in recent years due to having the Laurel Lake property and then the SunnyBrook, to the point where it was becoming a storage area. Nan liked the idea and a sunporch became the topic of planning - to be done once the garage siding was finished.

Some Planning

The porch was 20' wide roughly East to West along the wall of the house and extends 16' out to the South. The first part was obvious. Remove the screens and frames and put in walls and windows. The first big hangup was how to heat the area. There is no reasonable way to extend the furnace ductwork since the rec room is in the way and the ceiling is just high enough as it is. Losing height was not an option, nor was turning the rec room into a major mess. Additionally, the back wall of the house is a partial walkout with 4' concrete then studded the rest of the way and carries the weight of the upstairs. Large holes would require equally large reinforcing.

Enter Radiant Heat! Hydronic radiant heat is done with fluid, fluid moves in pipes, the pipes are small, small pipes only need little holes ... see where this is going? In truth, this did offer many advantages. The joists above the rec room provided a convenient path for running the 3/4" pipes and only two holes were required through the perimeter joist - not a big issue. After looking around, a quote for the materials was requested from the Radiantec firm of Vermont. I'll recommend these folks; they provided a basic plan for installation, have an 800 number to answer questions and were nice to deal with. There are several radiant heating outfits that can be located on the web, pricewise they were all very close and they may all be good, but I dealt with Radiantec and was quite pleased.

Windows (low E, Argon) were ordered from Home Depot - American Craftsman sliders, their house brand. We caught them on a 15% off sale and the salesman (Bill, who I trust) said they were good quality. We agree - we used Anderson casements and Farley sliders upstairs and these seem every bit as good and energy efficient. There are seven windows, 3 1/2 to 6 ft wide, 4 to 5ft high, totalling 37 linear feet in 52 feet of wall, nominally 139 square feet of glass! Oh yeah, and a 3'0" door with glass.

OK, we've figured out walls, windows and heating. Electricity is a nit, wires run between joists more easily than pipes and there's a 100 amp sub-panel in that corner of the basement. Interior finishing can be worried about when we get there, that's Nancy's problem anyhow. Time to go to work.

Remove, Stud and side

Work commenced on August 18 with removal of the screening and the framework that held it. The eaves of the roof are carried on doubled 2x8's supported at the house wall and bolted to 4x4 posts at the outer end and the midpoint of 8'. The center ridge pole is a tripled 2x8 from the house bolted to a 4x4 at the outer end.

By Septemer 16th, the exterior wall was up, the windows in, plywood sheathing on, vinyl sided with soffits and fascia complete, as well as extending the overhang on the South, and replacing a vent on the roof with an afterthought - a skylight - for venting.

Now to the heat

The three walls with outside exposure were fiberglass insulated along with the ceiling, then the house wall was stripped to the studs. The pressure treated 5/4x6 deck flooring was removed and the area between the floor joists was insulated. The porch is at ground level and the joists are supported on short 4x4 piers. When originally built there were 3 layers of 6 mil black plastic on the ground topped with several inches of pea gravel. Reflectix - an air/foil sandwich, was placed above the gravel and stapled to the joists then 6 1/2" fiberglass batts were placed above the Reflectix. On top of that is a layer of heat reflective foil with an air gap to the plywood ledger that was built about 2" down between the joists. The pex pipe for the heating was fastened down to the plywood and then covered with a ton or so of fine sand. There are two 240' runs of the 1/2 inch pex that go to valves located in the corner of the room. From there, the piping runs over the rec room ceiling to a new water heater. This is a closed system, with no connection to the house water supply, so no danger of contamination. The pump and controls are located near the water heater, the temperature is taken from a sensor inside a piece of copper in the sand and wired back to the controller. Plumbing is not a favorite task; the ledger was very time consuming to construct; and along with a fair amount of "what next" contemplation, the system wasn't fired up and running till November 5th.

On and On

That's how this job seemed to go - on and on. Next was the floor - 3/4 plywood, a relative gravy job except for worrying about accidentally putting a nail or screw through the pex, causing a leak, and starting all over. After the floor was down an inner wall of 2x3s was studded and rough wired. It was then insulated and layer of Tuff-R was applied to walls and ceiling to help the R value. The idea of two walls was to have a continuous insulated area between the windows to stop air infiltration. It's always a bit difficult to get continuous insulation in a wall with electrical wiring. I have to admit this wasn't an idea whose time had come, tt would have easier to just use 2x6 studding. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing broken.

We decided to use cedar planking for the walls and apply it vertically, so horizontal furring was added on 16" centers. At some point we decided to emulate a cabin atmosphere and also do the ceiling in cedar. The cedar planking was GeorgiaPacific from Lowes, came 3 1/2" wide in a bundle of 3', 5' and 8' lengths, tongue and grooved. The jury is sorta out on this yet. Some of the 8' pieces (which we needed the most of) were shaped like hockey sticks and got returned. Some others tried to go that way after being nailed up and a gap appeared in a few places. Overall, we think it looks great, but it's not the greatest material to work with and it sure shouldn't warp like it did. The last of the cedar wasn't applied till December 19th. By the way, this is another of those jobs for which an air nailer is almost a necessity. Using a hammer I'd probably still be nailing.

The fun part

This project has been dragging on since August but we're finally ready to do the molding, and with seven windows there's a lot of it. All the trim and finish stock comes from Southern Tier Hardwood, located on 434 just West of Appalachian. Highly recommended! If you like hardwoods - notably oak - this is the place to go. They are very accommodating and a pleasure to deal with - just ask for Mike. All the window jambs were cut from 4/4 red oak. You can pick out your own material or just give them a list of minimum board sizes and they'll supply what you need. Most of the standard molding shapes, baseboard, casing, quarter round, etc are cut and stocked in red and white oak, maple, poplar and several other species. The price is nearly the same as the mass merchandisers but there's a difference. For example, their casings are 1/2 inch thick, if you've ever looked at oak casing in Lowes or Home Depot they're 1/4 inch thick and be careful you don't split them when nailing. STHW has a "board room" which is kept stocked with moldings and boards. In case you can't tell, I really like the place.

Flooring

Radiantec had said to keep the R-value of the floor surface to a minimum to maximize the heat trasfer into the room, so we eliminated carpeting as a possibility. After consideration we opted for a vinyl sheet flooring, feeling that a laminate would be less efficient and we just didn't want to do ceramic tile. The vinyl is an embossed slate pattern that Matt helped put down in a few hours. It 's probably all in our heads, but the room seemed to heat better after the vinyl was down.

A 'Murphys Law' note on the vinyl. We planned ahead and ordered it almost two weeks before we expected to be ready to install. Although special orders 'require 7 to 10 working days' it was in 3 days after the order date. To Lowes credit, they notified us it was in but never bugged us to come get it. The day before we had planned to pick it up, they finally called again, not pestering, but just a reminder it was there.

To make a terribly long story short - the moldings and oak stairs from the rec room dragged on (and on and on) till March. But it did get done. Overall, it required about 400 hours of labor. And that doesn't include the two gallons of polyurethane and many hours Nancy spent on all that trim, plus two coats on all the cedar.

So - How do we like it?

WE LOVE IT!