Plan the Perfect Sunroom Addition

Follow these principles when building a sunroom addition and you can get the triple benefits of a cozy living space, free solar heat, and a super greenhouse for plants.

By David Wright
Updated on July 15, 2022
article image
by iStockphoto/Ann Taylor-Hughes

Follow these principles when building a sunroom addition and you can get the triple benefits of a cozy living space, free solar heat, and a super greenhouse for plants.

Think of a sunroom, sometimes called a sunspace, as a productive living area in your home with different benefits in different seasons. In spring and summer, a sunroom provides a relaxing living space. In winter, it’s also a great place to grow food plants. Even better, a sunroom can help heat your home! I estimate that a well-designed sunroom addition can pay for itself in less than five years through savings on food and home heating.

To realize the full benefits of your sunroom addition, you’ll need to incorporate the basic elements of passive solar design: orientation, glazing, thermal mass, insulation and ventilation. If you apply these principles, you shouldn’t need to heat or air-condition your sunroom — you will be able to keep this living space at a comfortable temperature by using natural systems.

Would a sunroom work for your house? If your solar exposure gives you at least four hours of sunlight around midday in midwinter, the answer is probably yes! The sunroom design strategies described in this article will work in almost all U.S. climate zones and southern Canada. However, you may want to research beyond the level of detail presented here to fine-tune your design for your specific climate, especially if you’re trying to optimize your heating potential.

Site Your Sunroom

You will want to orient your sunroom toward “true south” (which is usually a few degrees different than “magnetic” south) to best take advantage of the sun’s low angle in winter. There are several methods for finding true south. In general, orienting the solar window 20 degrees off true south reduces your solar gain by only 4 to 5 percent. On the other hand, if your glass is oriented 45 degrees off true south, solar gain will be 18 to 22 percent less.

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