Are you looking to add a sunroom to your home? In today’s economy you want to know what you might be betting into financially, cost calculator is for. Even the best calculators can’t predict every last variable, so it’s still an estimate and there can be a lot of factors that determine the final cost. Total square footage of the prospective space, type of building, your ZIP code, local labor costs, finishing details, type of sunroom, scope of the change, materials used, local building codes for your area, the exact location of the sunroom in your home, how the sunroom ties into your home in general, and any special touches all affect the eventual cost.
Sunroom Types
When thinking about a sunroom, the type of sunroom you’re getting is one of the higher-priority decisions to make, as that can affect the cost considerably. Sunrooms do add value to your home, so that changes your property taxes and insurance, as well. The various types of sunrooms are screen rooms, integrated sunrooms, three season and four season sunrooms, conservatories, solariums, and curved eave sunrooms.
Screen rooms are probably the simplest: rooms with screen in them, allowing sun in and keeping annoying pests out. As would be expected, screen rooms are good for otherwise-open spaces, like porches and balconies.
Three season sunrooms are separated from the main house by an entry door; they’ve got less insulation than other types and aren’t designed to be cooled or heated, instead gaining their temperature from the outside air. Such a sunroom isn’t particularly enjoyable in winter, hence the name.
Four season sunrooms can be used year-round, and unlike three season sunrooms, are designed with cost-effective heating and cooling in mind. You can also add a patio, folding, or French door to one of these.
So what does this have to do with the price? Turns out, it has a great deal to do with it. Screen rooms might range from around $5,000 to $25,000. Conservatories, the most variable of the bunch, can range from $18,000 on the lower end of things all the way up to $95,000.
If you’re adding, renovating, or expanding a sunroom because you want to sell your house, a quick touch-up or low-cost but elegant sunroom is likely to be a good investment.
What Should I Expect?
The precise cost of any sunroom depends on what you want done with it and how that’s going to affect the resulting price. There are a few averages, however, to potentially go by. For instance, a sunroom addition may cost $100 to $350 per square foot, on average. Low-end sunrooms may tend more toward an average of $15,000; sunrooms in the middle toward $45,000; and high-end sunrooms toward $80,000. Needless to say, you’ll want to budget appropriately. The national average cost of a sunroom is approximately $45,000, though this varies from year to year.