Renovating a converted patio

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨prokyonid@lemmy.sdf.org⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I live in a 1960s-built single-story ranch in Ohio. The house was originally built with a covered back patio, floored with concrete. At some point, the original owners closed it up into a large sunroom.

The sunroom conversion was done extremely haphazardly - the exterior siding doesn’t match, carpet was laid with no padding on the concrete, the hood in the kitchen vents into it, and the walls are uninsulated and undrywalled - wainscoting panels attached directly to studs. I don’t know what the plan was, but at some point they must have been tired of it being so cold back there because they added a woodburning stove in the middle of the room (without properly screening off the chimney, so a few times a year a starling or a squirrel falls in and either breaks their neck or starves to death) and it must have too hot as they also ran wiring to install a large through-wall A/C unit.

I’m sure it’s obvious from my description but the room is impractical to use as anything but storage at this point. In the winter, it gets colder in there than in my garage but I’m not about to run that woodstove and burn my house down, and in summer it’s so leaky and humid from the poorly installed a/c unit and ancient single-pane sliding windows that every attempt to habitate it has resulted in having to clean blue mold off the walls and furniture in there. Thankfully the old patio door seals it all off pretty well, and that’s what we’ve done for the last few years since we realized just how bad the situation in there was.

I’d like to make the space functional again, especially as it would increase my square footage by around 40%, but don’t really know where to start.

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Remove and store the stove. Take the will thing apart one layer at a time. I think your primary concern should be the electrical. Try to carefully expose any wiring. You might want to hire an electrician to trace and de-energize the space.

From your description, the odds are in favor of removing the entire structure. You might be able to salvage the building materials.

I’d be most concerned about the electrical work. Consider adding a combo smoke/CO detector ASAP.

source
- prokyonid@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Had an electrician go through the entire place when we first bought the house so we could get safe three-prong outlets in place of the two-prong ungrounded outlets that were originally there. Didn’t do a full rewire because there’s no ceiling access - originally, the only heatsource for the house was electric radiant ceilings, though a couple baseboards were installed at some point after initial construction. The wiring for the sunroom’s A/C is run through a conduit on the outside of the house. I replaced the original through-wall unit shortly after we moved in, and I’ve seen that whole circuit.
  
  What about the interior wall, against what used to be the exterior of the house?
  
  source
  - octobob@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    When you say “didn’t do a full re-wire” do you mean he left all wiring as is inside the walls and swapped 2-prong ungrounded outlets to 3-prong (which would be a bootleg ground and is illegal)
    
    Or do you mean he ran new wire to some of the outlets and left what he couldn’t get to as 2-prong?
    
    I’m an electrician fwiw.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You should expose the conditions behind that wall.
    
    source
prokyonid@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Started the process of exposing the interior wall - this would have been the original exterior wall of the house, before the patio was closed in.

Back of wainscoting panel

Exposed sheathing

Blurry picture of back of carpet and underlayment

This all looks relatively healthy to me so far, though this is only one four foot section. I’ll proceed towards the corner, once I find a home for the stuff I have stored back there.

source
r0ertel@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
In addition to the other advice, if it is reasonable to do so, you would benefit from raising the floor up a bit to add insulation and a vapor barrier. The concrete will draw in the cold and humidity.

source
- prokyonid@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  How do you mean, raise the floor? I believe the concrete patio floor was poured as part of the foundation of the house.
  
  source
  - r0ertel@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I don’t know the building code for your area or if it would even work with the other stuff in the area, but the idea is to lay at least 2x2’s every 16", put Styrofoam between the 2x2’s, lay plastic or tyvek or some vapor barrier over it all then lay down plywood and carpet on top of that. It’s a lot of work to retrofit this into an existing space, but if you’re starting over, it may be worthwhile.
    
    I had a townhouse on a concrete slab and in the winter, the cold would transfer through the concrete to the point that when it was below 0F, the water lines running through the concrete would freeze up.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
Brkdncr@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Sounds like you need to tear it apart and weather proof it.

I would aim for a 3-season porch and expect that it won’t be used the winter. A modern mini split heat pump would be able to handle heat, cooling, and humidity control if you need it.

source
- prokyonid@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yeah, when we first moved in the plan was to put in an alternative heat source so we could use it as combination exercise / office space. I’d really like to be able to set it up that way - I like the view the sunroom gives but I really need more year-round floor space so I’d be willing to lose the sunroom functionality completely if I had to
  
  source