Keeping the Heat in, Even With a Sunroom.

My little Warm Morning just can't put out enough heat to keep the house in the 70s with the sun room losing heat it seems.
This is the sunroom on my house. It used to be an old country porch with pillers and what not but what the previous owner did was build a sunroom on the brick porch and nocked out the front wall of the house.


This shot is when we first bought the house and ripped up the crap carpet that was covering the beautiful oak flooring.


This room is great when the sun is shining but as soon as the sun goes down it becomes the cold room. I lit a candle and tried to find a noticeable draft but I can't find anything noticible. We have semi-heavy curtains gaming from the ceiling to block the house from the sun room but they bow with the slight draft that is created by natural convection. I have the French doors taped up because I need new ones and the windows are double pain. Is this just the nature of glass ? Is there anything you all can think of to better hold in the heat? I am buying a Larger stove , a BB this year, for next winter and I'm hooking up another stove in the kitchen but for the time being this is what I have to deal with. It's warm enough in the house but I like to keep it close to 70 instead of 63-65. I hope this post is ok in this forum as it is related to the heat from my hand fired stove.

Thanks

Josh

Its a shame the owner took out the whole wall, what about using plastic to seal off the room for the winter months, may not be the most elegant option but it will keep the cold out if you don't use the room this time of year. I don't see any blinds or curtains on the windows, we close all our blinds and curtains here when the sun is not shinning in the winter months to help hold the heat.

I see you mention you will be looking for and buying a bb, just curious as to why you decided to go with a baseburner over a baseheater ?

Insulated panels that you put up at night...
In a track so air currents do not form...

I'll bet the only way to fix that would be spending INSANE amounts of cash on double-walled gas-filled glass for the entire getup. If it were me, I'd seal it off for the winter - make it a 3 season room.

Well you could put a second smaller stove in the sunroom. Longer term, I'd consider removing that large amount of glass in the front. If you don't mind me saying, it doesn't go with the home. Frame it in, insulate it and install some windows that match the front upper ones in size and look.

What about getting some honeycomb insulating blinds or very heavy drapes for the windows? Is there insulation in the roofspace?

That floor is awful pretty, but it's not helping squat as far as holding any heat in there. Try some temp. winter carpets.Looks like you've already got potential laying right there--not the prettiest, but damn functional. I'll bet it would help a lot. Plus what echo said.

echos67 wrote:Its a shame the owner took out the whole wall, what about using plastic to seal off the room for the winter months, may not be the most elegant option but it will keep the cold out if you don't use the room this time of year. I don't see any blinds or curtains on the windows, we close all our blinds and curtains here when the sun is not shinning in the winter months to help hold the heat.

I see you mention you will be looking for and buying a bb, just curious as to why you decided to go with a baseburner over a baseheater ?

Well this is embarrassing but I thought they were both the same thing. I guess I was mistaken.

coalkirk wrote:Well you could put a second smaller stove in the sunroom. Longer term, I'd consider removing that large amount of glass in the front. If you don't mind me saying, it doesn't go with the home. Frame it in, insulate it and install some windows that match the front upper ones in size and look.

It doesn't go with the house to an extent but we sure do love it in the spring, summer, and fall. I also love the brick floor as this is where I dump my coal in the hod. All the windows open up which is awesome. There are no curtains in the sunroom but heavy tall ones that go to the floor from the ceiling but I guess not heavy enough to block all the air. I remember from historic homes that they used to use very heavy tapestries on the walls as insulation so that was an idea but not so practical with the cost of fabric. I guess we will have to weigh out the idea of framing it in or leaving it. I may frame it in and put a bay window in. Maybe the plastic will work well. I thought about putting a stove in there but I would need to put a chimney of some sort in and put it a couple feet about the peak of the roof and that wouldn't look so pleasing.

So it seems this is just the nature of lots of glass just like my father told me.

The more I think about it the idea of framing it in does sound good. Most houses that have sun rooms have them deprecated by a wall. But if I did frame it in I would have a very large living room .

I think you are going to have to decide if this sun room is going to be part of your heated space, or just a glassed in porch. It you want to heat this space, it will need to be rebuilt.

If it is to be heated, I would lay down sleepers on top of the bricks and rigid insulation and of course sub flooring. Reframe the walls to accept smaller double pane windows and insulate the wall. Replace french doors with an insulated steel door. Make sure the cieling is well insulated and vented. Now you can heat.

Quite frankly I would leave the glassed in porch alone at least for now and build a proper new wall right where the old one was. This set up would be very much like the one in my old house. That gave us a very nice 3 season room and a warm house.

RHarhen wrote:What about getting some honeycomb insulating blinds or very heavy drapes for the windows? Is there insulation in the roofspace?

What are honeycomb insulating blinds? I have never heard of them before. I believe the ceiling has very thin insulation between the shingles the ceiling. I know that is part of the problem.

freetown fred wrote:That floor is awful pretty, but it's not helping squat as far as holding any heat in there. Try some temp. winter carpets.Looks like you've already got potential laying right there--not the prettiest, but damn functional. I'll bet it would help a lot. Plus what echo said.

Fred, that old nasty carpet is long gone that was over 2 years ago. We are buying a large rug though. The WM is finally getting the house back up to temp but I'm running it at 500-600f and my wife isn't too familiar with the coal yet plus pregnant so her bumping it up and adding coal while I was at work wasn't really her thing today.

grizzly2 wrote:I think you are going to have to decide if this sun room is going to be part of your heated space, or just a glassed in porch. It you want to heat this space, it will need to be rebuilt.

If it is to be heated, I would lay down sleepers on top of the bricks and rigid insulation and of course sub flooring. Reframe the walls to accept smaller double pane windows and insulate the wall. Replace french doors with an insulated steel door. Make sure the cieling is well insulated and vented. Now you can heat.

Quite frankly I would leave the glassed in porch alone at least for now and build a proper new wall right where the old one was. This set up would be very much like the one in my old house. That gave us a very nice 3 season room and a warm house.

I think you're right grizzly. I have thought about putting a wall back in with windows to the sunroom to keep the light coming in. I think that redoing the sunroom is out of the question because of cost. We are adding onto the house in the next few years so maybe something will come of that.

You like the Warm Morning. If you don't mind the ride North there are a lot of them here and very reasonable. I mean for you to get a larger one. there is a 60 pound and a 100 pound one.

I wonder if a garage door insulation kit would work on those windows? or making a wall of Tuff-R insulation and stappling R-30 bats on both sides, it's not going to look pretty but it may help????

What are honeycomb insulating blinds?

They look similar to regular blinds only they have 'cells' designed to insulate, they have the option to go in tracks along the edges of the windows, or ceiling/floor for vertical blinds to eliminate drafts as well. Typically they add around a r5 insulation value to the window while still allowing light to pass through. They also might be desirable in the summer to help keep the room cooler.

I have them on my old sliding door and they make a noticeable difference in terms of the room feeling cold by the door.

Geeze - wonder if I could do every window in my house with those! An R5 is better than anything in this old dump!