Patio-to-sunroom conversion in La Palma CA - a room built on a base that holds

At La Palma Sunrooms & Patios, most of our calls come from people with a patio they'd like to get more use out of, here in La Palma and in the cities around it on both the Orange County and Los Angeles County sides. The price moves with the size of the room, whether you'll heat or cool it, the glass and insulation you choose and how much footing work your slab needs, while the schedule turns mostly on the city's plan review and that base work. I write all of that up for your patio at the estimate, with the room type, the options and the price.

The first thing we settle is whether you'll heat or cool the room, because the national sunroom trade association treats that as the choice that decides what kind of sunroom you're building. Some rooms have no heating or cooling of their own, a room with its own system keeps your house's doors and windows in place between it and the home, and at the far end the room is essentially a regular addition, so I'd rather you pick the glass and insulation now than wish you had later. Your slab becomes the floor of the room, so next I look at what's under the walls and plan the footing work the room needs before I price it. After that we draw the plans, put in the footings, frame and close in the room, set the glass and clean up.

Not every space starts as a slab. If yours is a wood deck, deck-to-sunroom conversion follows the same thinking but begins with what's holding the deck up. If you already know you'll heat and cool the room, our all season rooms are where those choices get built in from the start.

In La Palma, permits come from the city's Building & Safety office, and almost every improvement plan goes through plan check, the city's review of the drawings, before a permit is issued. Whether your room needs a permit is something we confirm with the city for your job, and if it does, we prepare the plans and file them. The city's planning staff handle applications for residential remodels and design review, so some rooms get a look from them too. California's Energy Code also sets energy and water efficiency requirements for additions and alterations to existing homes, which is one more reason the glass and insulation get chosen before the plans are drawn.

Most of the patios I look at around here are slabs poured off the back of the house for a table and chairs, often with a patio cover already over them, and a slab poured for that usually has nothing under its edge built to carry a wall. We see the same back patios on jobs in Cypress and Buena Park, so the old cover's posts and the slab edge are where I start looking.