Patio-to-sunroom conversion in Redlands CA - a room that stays dry and holds its roof

Most people who call Lightline Redlands Sunrooms & Patios already have a slab out back and want more usable room without starting from bare dirt. If shade is all you're after, a patio cover may be enough. For a room, the price mostly turns on whether it's heated and cooled, how big it is, what shape the slab is in and what it takes to carry the new roof. The schedule turns on the building office's review and on what I find at the slab edge, and your written estimate spells out what's in the price and what isn't.

I start where the slab edge meets the house, because that line decides where the new walls go and whether water has a place to sit against them. Next we work out what will carry the new roof, so it isn't leaning on the fascia board, the trim board that runs along your eave. Once the plan is settled, our crew sets the base so it sheds water away from the house, frames the walls, ties the roof in, installs and seals the windows and tracks, and runs electrical for lights and outlets. Those are the parts you won't see once it's done, and they're the ones I care most about.

If the space off your back door is a wood deck rather than concrete, a deck-to-sunroom conversion starts from different questions about the framing underneath. If you want the room comfortable in the hottest and coldest weeks alike, we can build it as one of our all season rooms, heated and cooled like the rest of the house.

The city of Redlands sends permits for residential additions, patio and deck work and remodels to its Building office, but its list doesn't name patio-to-sunroom conversions, so the list alone doesn't settle what your job needs. The Building office is the place to ask, and on our jobs we take care of the permits the building office asks for, whether that's a city or the county, with that written into the contract. California's Energy Code also sets energy and water efficiency requirements for additions and alterations to existing houses, not just new ones, which is one more reason we settle the glass and insulation before the build. The state licenses contractors through the Contractors State License Board, with classes that include general building and residential remodeling, so it's fair to ask which license an installer holds.

Around here we mostly see single-story houses with concrete patios poured years ago, often a little bigger or smaller than the room you'd want, and summer heat that makes the room-type choice count. We plan the same kind of patios on jobs in Highland and Yucaipa.