Suburban homeowners often opt for sunroom additions

The great outdoors are, indeed, "great." Most people love gazing out on their yards filled with colorful flowers, trees of varying shades of green, lovely birds and other wildlife - like frolicking children.

There is nothing more relaxing than getting comfortable outside with a good book or a nice meal - except when the bugs are biting, the sun is blazing hot or the snow is falling. And face it: all those things happen at one time or another in Illinois.

That is undoubtedly why, over the last decade, the sunroom construction industry in the Chicago area has seen a spike in business.

"People seem to be looking for a way to bring the outdoors inside," said Beth Van Dyke, sales manager of Modern Homes, based in Lake Villa. "We are finding that even people who want a family room addition on their homes want it in a sunroom form. They want as many windows as possible."

"These types of rooms give people an outdoor space that is away from the bugs," said Brian Kinane, sales manager for TimberBuilt Rooms, based in St. Charles. "They are growing more and more popular."

Dale and Anita Plautz hired TimberBuilt four years ago to construct a sunroom on the rear of their two-story brick and cedar colonial home in Grayslake.

"My wife and I both grew up in small towns so we love the outdoors," Dale Plautz said. "We looked at buying vacation property in Fox Lake and in Wisconsin but we found that to be cost-prohibitive and it would have totally changed the dynamics of our drives to work."

So instead they looked into adding a sunroom to their home of 13 years at that time.

Today they are enjoying a four-season room measuring about 18-by-18 feet. It is entirely surrounded by thermopane windows and features Berber carpeting, a special heating and cooling unit for that room and plenty of space to house a sofa, cocktail table, two chairs and a small dry bar with bar stools.

"When we open the windows we can enjoy the outdoors without being outside with all of the bugs, and the ceiling fan adds to the breeze," Plautz said.

"Our sunroom is as solid as the rest of our house. They tore up an existing patio and sunk footings. It sits on steel bars and joists and even when the wind howls, it doesn't rattle," he said.

That seems to be the goal of all sunroom contracting companies. They want to make the sunroom look like an integral part of the original home - not like something stuck on as an afterthought, Van Dyke said.

In fact, Modern Homes is now offering sunrooms as an option in the many homes they build "since people are now realizing how valuable this kind of space is," she said. "It is the No. 1 type of remodeling project we see."

The company builds 10 to 15 sunroom additions per year, in addition to their new home construction business and other remodeling projects. Van Dyke can be contacted at (847) 356-8886 or at modern-homes.com.

TimberBuilt has been in the sunroom, screen room and porch conversion business since 2002 and they saw demand increasing every year until the recent downturn. Before 2007, Kinane said they were up to nearly 120 projects per year. Over the last three years that average has dropped to about 90 projects per year, but this year the number is starting to slowly climb again.

"We get a large number of inquiries from people who are interested in adding on because they can't or won't sell in this market," Kinane said.

"The most popular rooms are all-season rooms because the difference between a heated and cooled room and one without that is only about 20 percent," he said. "Of course, screen rooms are also very popular to keep out the bugs."

A screen room can be built on top of an existing deck and only takes a week or two to complete, Kinane said. They are also economical, costing in the upper teens.

Unheated three-season rooms with windows instead of just screens generally have price tags in the upper $20,000-range and take three to five weeks to construct, using a trench foundation.

Heated and cooled four-season sunrooms generally cost in the mid to upper $30,000s, but Kinane said they have built sunrooms that have cost as much as $60,000 because there are lots of options that people can choose.

Most of the sunrooms TimberBuilt constructs feature gabled roofs because people like the vaulted ceilings and they average approximately 12-by-15 feet. Those who choose the glass-roofed conservatories are generally gardeners, Kinane said, because they are better for plants than for people, thanks to the intensity of the sun.

"We try to match the architecture of the rest of the house. So for our exteriors, we are typically using the same materials as the house we are building the addition on," he explained. "For example, if the house is vinyl siding, we match with the same vinyl siding; if the house is cedar siding, we match with pre-stained cedar siding."

They are willing to use any type of windows the customer requests: wood, vinyl, fiberglass, or aluminum. For the interior, the customer chooses from a wide array of materials. The interior can be trimmed in cedar or pine if the customer likes a wood interior. It can also be dry walled to match the house.

They leave the treatment of the floor up to the customer - tile, carpet, whatever they choose.

In addition, "some people choose to have a fireplace included while others want the ductwork from their home tied into the sunroom. There are lots of choices," Kinane said.

Building code differs from municipality to municipality, but Van Dyke of Modern Homes said that if you want a heated sunroom, a foundation or full basement underneath is required. And depending upon the wishes and dreams of the particular client, the job can take from one month to several months to complete.

Those hoping to get a sunroom but trim the budget to make it more affordable can consider doing some of the painting, landscaping or trim work themselves, Van Dyke suggested. You can also demolish any old patio or deck before the construction crew arrives. The use of vinyl windows instead of wood also saves money, as does the use of piers sunk into the ground instead of a full foundation, if local code permits.

Kinane offers an upgradeable room for TimberBuilt customers who need to save money.

"They can go for single pane glass in their windows at first and then down the road, install better windows," he said. "They can also install the ductwork for heat at a later date, as long as that is planned for in advance and the right foundation is put in at the beginning."

TimberBuilt can be contacted at (630) 443-7100 or timberbuiltsunrooms.com.

Just coming onto the Chicago market is yet another option for sunroom construction. Owens Corning is now offering its SunSuites rooms through a dealer based in Toledo, Ohio. It is made of all-fiberglass or vinyl-covered fiberglass construction and is already very popular on both coasts, said Joe Rhodes, SunSuites business manager.

"Most of our customers are empty-nesters over the age of 50 who are looking for something different to do with their home now that the kids are gone," he said. "They are looking for additional space and they want to enjoy the outdoor environment. Some even choose to put lap pools or hot tubs inside their SunSuites."

Information about Sunsuites can be found at www.franchising.owenscorning.com/sunroom/products/.

"People are ecstatic about these rooms because they allow you to have almost an all-glass view and they are totally custom-built, without the time and mess of stick-built construction," Rhodes said.

If you choose to install them over an existing patio or deck, they can be built in two or three days. But they do require footers. Rather than adding extra piers or footers to meet the local code, it is sometimes better to just tear out the existing structure and start from scratch, which adds to the time involved, he said.

The average cost of a 12-by-14-foot SunSuites vinyl/fiberglass room in the Midwest is $25,000 to $27,000, Rhodes said, while the average cost of the same sized all-fiberglass SunSuites room in this area is $35,000 to $37,000.

"People really like the fact that Owens Corning has been around a long time so they know that we will be here if any warranty issues crop up," he said. And the Owens Corning warranty on SunSuites covers everything except acts of God and is transferable to one subsequent homeowner.

Once a SunSuite is ordered, Rhodes says it takes eight to 12 weeks to get the necessary municipal and homeowner association permits and to manufacture the room components and get them shipped to the site. But the actual construction time is minimal since everything is factory-built.

SunSuites were first introduced nationally in late 2006.