Four season sunrooms in La Palma CA - a room that stays comfortable all year

Most people who call us have a patio, deck or tired old sunroom out back that only gets used a few weeks a year because it's too hot, too cold or too buggy, and a four-season room is often where a patio-to-sunroom conversion ends up. The price moves with the size of the room, whether it needs a new foundation or can use what's there, the roof and glass you pick and how you heat and cool it. The schedule mostly turns on the city's plan review and inspections, which I'll cover below. When I come out, I write up the room type, the options and the price for your job, so you're working from your own number instead of a guess.

I start with what the room will sit on, because a room is only as good as its base, so I look at the slab, deck or ground and at whatever the room will tie into on the house. Next we settle whether the room stays closed off from the house behind your existing doors and windows or opens up like any other room, since that decides how the walls and the heating and cooling get planned. A room you'll use all year needs a real plan for heating and cooling, so I lay out the options in the estimate where you can compare them. Insulation and glass get picked before we build too, because they go in much easier while the walls are open and adding them later usually costs more. Once the plans are approved, our crew sets the base, frames the room, closes it in with the roof and windows, insulates and finishes it, and cleans up when we're done.

Not every backyard needs all of that. If you mostly want a bright room for the mild months, a three season sunroom is usually a simpler, less costly build. If you'd rather close in the patio you already have with lighter walls and screens, a patio enclosure can be the better fit. I'll tell you which one I think matches how you'll use the space and leave the choice with you.

Almost every improvement plan in La Palma goes through plan check before the city's Building & Safety office will issue a permit, and that review is usually what your start date turns on. Plan check starts with three sets of plans and a plan check fee, and some plans also need fire or health review. State energy guidance says additions that change the home's outer shell or its heating and cooling need a certificate of compliance submitted with the permit application, and a four-season room usually does both. If your job needs a permit, we take care of it, so we prepare the plans and that energy form, file them with the city and book the inspections. If you'd like to ask the city something yourself, its application help line is 714-690-3340.

Around La Palma we mostly see one- and two-story houses with a concrete patio or an older patio cover off the back, and a lot of those slabs were poured for a table and chairs, not walls and a roof. I check the slab and what's holding up the cover before planning anything, and we add footings where the room needs them. We see the same kind of backyards on jobs in Cypress and Lakewood, and we work in many of the cities around La Palma on both the Orange County and Los Angeles County sides.