Enclosed patio rooms in La Palma CA - a closed-in patio you'll actually use

Most people who call us have a patio that goes unused because it's too windy, too bright or too dusty, and they want walls around it without heating and cooling a whole new room. The room type sets much of the budget, because a screened patio is the simplest build and a four season room with a foundation, all weather windows and heating and air conditioning costs the most. Size, the glass you pick and any work the slab needs move the price from there, and if your room needs a permit, the schedule mostly follows the city's plan check and inspections, which we take care of. Your estimate gives you the room type, the options and the price for your job.

We start by talking through how you'll use the room, because most people want a closed-in room they can sit in without heating or cooling, and that choice decides the glass and the walls before anything is ordered. Before we build on your slab, I check that it stands high enough above the ground around it to keep water out of the window tracks. One enclosure maker's install guide calls for the slab to sit higher than the ground around it, since the bottom tracks have small drain openings called weep holes and standing water can get in through them. City building handouts also advise finding out whether a slab is post-tensioned, poured with tight steel cables inside, before anyone cuts into it, because cutting one of those cables can be dangerous and expensive to repair. Once the slab checks out, we draw up the plans, get the permit if your room needs one, set the frame and windows and clean up when the room is done.

Some patios need more than walls and windows. If yours has no roof yet, patio cover installation usually comes first, because there has to be a solid roof over the patio before there's anything to close in. If you want light coming through the ceiling as well as the walls, solarium installation is likely a better fit than an enclosed patio.

La Palma's Building & Safety office handles permits and inspections online, and almost every improvement plan goes through plan check before the city issues a permit. The city has handouts for an attached patio cover and a detached patio, but closing in a patio is its own question, so we confirm with Building & Safety what your room needs before we build. If it needs a permit, we prepare the plans, file them with the city and book the inspections. Inspections here run Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to noon, with none on Fridays, and since you may need to be home for some of them, I'll let you know ahead of each one.

A lot of the houses we work on around La Palma have a concrete patio out back that was poured years ago, and some sit close to the level of the lawn or planters, which is why slab height is the first thing I look at. We see the same backyard patios on jobs in Cypress and Buena Park, and we handle them the same way.