Anonymous wrote:First question. What is a four season sunroom? I have a sunroom and it’s only comfortable for a couple of months out of the year, in the spring and fall. Less than a full season.

Four season sunroom has HVAC and is designed to be usable year-round. Yours sounds like a "three season room" (which, yes, is often not actually comfortable for three full seasons.)

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Anonymous wrote:Absolutely bone-headed building code changed in MoCo and Arlington are responsible for a big part of the skyrocketing cost of additions. You basically can’t put an addition on top of a crawl space and concrete footers anymore. Everything has to be on foundation. And what’s more, that new foundation can’t just be next to the old one, it has to dig down underneath it to connect or some nonsense. So if you want to change your footprint you have to call in an excavator and a cement truck, engineers, etc.

This is the International Residential Code. Different jurisdictions are more aggressive about adopting the latest version and enforcing it but it's the national standard.

Making houses have appropriate foundations is not a bad thing.

Yes, but I’m pretty sure people have been building houses on crawl spaces and footers for a long time and there’s no good reason to make that illegal. Just a dumb regulation adopted without any cost benefit analysis.

Nothing in the IRC precludes crawl spaces. From the way you use "footers" I think you mean piers, nothing in the code precludes that either. It's just that when you size them appropriately for soil conditions the cost advantage over a trench foundation disappears.

It's not that there was no cost-benefit analysis, it's that they stopped discounting the future so severely.

What’s funny is that I already had an addition on my house from the 1980s, built on crawl space and footers, and after we had an engineer analyse it we concluded it could support a second story. Seems like whoever built the thing had a pretty good grip on “the future”.

By "footers" do you mean posts? Because every foundation has a footing.

Maybe piers on footers. Though I've seen it described as posts, as in post and beam. I have a 1950 Cape Cod built on pier and beam foundation with open crawl space. I think code allowed 1.5 stories built on these foundations, though I could be remembering that incorrectly.

Code no longer allows any wood below ground. You can do piers, but you the pier has to be concrete to the surface. You then can have a treated wood post sitting on top of the concrete pier. Since the post isn't continuous, you have to have bracing to keep it from hinging at the point it attaches to the concrete if there is any horizontal force. It's all doable, but it becomes more expensive, to the point where you might find it easier just to dig trench and lay concrete block.

Thanks for describing the difference.

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Anonymous wrote:Absolutely bone-headed building code changed in MoCo and Arlington are responsible for a big part of the skyrocketing cost of additions. You basically can’t put an addition on top of a crawl space and concrete footers anymore. Everything has to be on foundation. And what’s more, that new foundation can’t just be next to the old one, it has to dig down underneath it to connect or some nonsense. So if you want to change your footprint you have to call in an excavator and a cement truck, engineers, etc.

This is the International Residential Code. Different jurisdictions are more aggressive about adopting the latest version and enforcing it but it's the national standard.

Making houses have appropriate foundations is not a bad thing.

Yes, but I’m pretty sure people have been building houses on crawl spaces and footers for a long time and there’s no good reason to make that illegal. Just a dumb regulation adopted without any cost benefit analysis.

Nothing in the IRC precludes crawl spaces. From the way you use "footers" I think you mean piers, nothing in the code precludes that either. It's just that when you size them appropriately for soil conditions the cost advantage over a trench foundation disappears.

It's not that there was no cost-benefit analysis, it's that they stopped discounting the future so severely.

What’s funny is that I already had an addition on my house from the 1980s, built on crawl space and footers, and after we had an engineer analyse it we concluded it could support a second story. Seems like whoever built the thing had a pretty good grip on “the future”.

By "footers" do you mean posts? Because every foundation has a footing.

Maybe piers on footers. Though I've seen it described as posts, as in post and beam. I have a 1950 Cape Cod built on pier and beam foundation with open crawl space. I think code allowed 1.5 stories built on these foundations, though I could be remembering that incorrectly.

Code no longer allows any wood below ground. You can do piers, but you the pier has to be concrete to the surface. You then can have a treated wood post sitting on top of the concrete pier. Since the post isn't continuous, you have to have bracing to keep it from hinging at the point it attaches to the concrete if there is any horizontal force. It's all doable, but it becomes more expensive, to the point where you might find it easier just to dig trench and lay concrete block.

For all of those - 3 season, 4 season, screened in - you'll need a foundation, roof, and some electrical work. There are 5 categories of sunrooms, according to (I think) the IRC, with categories 4 and 5 being closer to regular rooms. Costs will vary with the type of windows and doors you buy, roof type, extent of electrical work, access to site, siding type, and interior finishes. So, you'll probably pay a minimum amount for the work to be done, no matter screened in or sunroom.

I had a sunroom rebuilt from an existing closed in porch (had slider windows and siding and a storm door). Roof was already in place. I had to rebuild the footers and piers to code. I replaced rotted beams and joists, and added more to strengthen the floor and walls. I went with inexpensive vinyl windows and fiberglass doors, wood siding. I'll add a mini split. All in, not including sweat equity, I'm looking at about $25k. If I had the extra money, I probably would've paid someone to do all of the work. I don't have an expensive house with expensive trim, so my costs were on the lower end anyway.

I'd get detailed quotes and compare material costs. Those should be comparable across all quotes. The difference will be the labor, project management, and schedule. If you know what you want for windows, doors, siding, and roof materials, you could price those out yourself to get some idea of costs.

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Anonymous wrote:Absolutely bone-headed building code changed in MoCo and Arlington are responsible for a big part of the skyrocketing cost of additions. You basically can’t put an addition on top of a crawl space and concrete footers anymore. Everything has to be on foundation. And what’s more, that new foundation can’t just be next to the old one, it has to dig down underneath it to connect or some nonsense. So if you want to change your footprint you have to call in an excavator and a cement truck, engineers, etc.

This is the International Residential Code. Different jurisdictions are more aggressive about adopting the latest version and enforcing it but it's the national standard.

Making houses have appropriate foundations is not a bad thing.

Yes, but I’m pretty sure people have been building houses on crawl spaces and footers for a long time and there’s no good reason to make that illegal. Just a dumb regulation adopted without any cost benefit analysis.

Nothing in the IRC precludes crawl spaces. From the way you use "footers" I think you mean piers, nothing in the code precludes that either. It's just that when you size them appropriately for soil conditions the cost advantage over a trench foundation disappears.

It's not that there was no cost-benefit analysis, it's that they stopped discounting the future so severely.

What’s funny is that I already had an addition on my house from the 1980s, built on crawl space and footers, and after we had an engineer analyse it we concluded it could support a second story. Seems like whoever built the thing had a pretty good grip on “the future”.

By "footers" do you mean posts? Because every foundation has a footing.

Maybe piers on footers. Though I've seen it described as posts, as in post and beam. I have a 1950 Cape Cod built on pier and beam foundation with open crawl space. I think code allowed 1.5 stories built on these foundations, though I could be remembering that incorrectly.

100-150 at a minimum.

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Anonymous wrote:Our duplex is tiny and we’re adding about 250 sq ft. It will be a finished room with a full bathroom. I believe it will come to about 70k. We considered a sunroom, but thought that a real room would be more useful for us. We thought about moving, but between transaction fees etc, we figured that building an extension would be cheaper.

Where do you live?

OMG, PP can you please share your contractor and the year that was done? That price sounds amazing and we'd sign off on it tomorrow.

NP but it sounds like construction hasn't started yet which means the price is not real.

Right. The final total is always a lot higher. Usually by 100% or so.

$280/sq ft for a small addition (remember, economy in scale) with a bathroom is unrealistic. Particularly since it must not be a fixed price contract if PP is talking about 'expected' totals.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our duplex is tiny and we’re adding about 250 sq ft. It will be a finished room with a full bathroom. I believe it will come to about 70k. We considered a sunroom, but thought that a real room would be more useful for us. We thought about moving, but between transaction fees etc, we figured that building an extension would be cheaper.

Where do you live?

OMG, PP can you please share your contractor and the year that was done? That price sounds amazing and we'd sign off on it tomorrow.

NP but it sounds like construction hasn't started yet which means the price is not real.

Right. The final total is always a lot higher. Usually by 100% or so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our duplex is tiny and we’re adding about 250 sq ft. It will be a finished room with a full bathroom. I believe it will come to about 70k. We considered a sunroom, but thought that a real room would be more useful for us. We thought about moving, but between transaction fees etc, we figured that building an extension would be cheaper.

Where do you live?

OMG, PP can you please share your contractor and the year that was done? That price sounds amazing and we'd sign off on it tomorrow.

NP but it sounds like construction hasn't started yet which means the price is not real.