Thursday 28 April 2011

Sunrooms - A Basic Guide

A sunroom is a space inside a house that is usually used for relaxing and enjoying exotic natural beauty. A sunroom is usually built in close proximity to a beautiful landscape and is generally sheltered from wind and rain.


Sunrooms are generally house additions that have large windows all over to let the sun pour in. in order to make it an ideal space for relaxation, you can keep a television set and plant pots to make the ambience soothing. If you do not have a sunspace yet, you can consider getting one for your house. It will be similar to building a separate room under a house.


There are several types of sunrooms that you can opt for:


3 season sunrooms


This type of sunrooms can be built on a deck. Many houses have a separate deck, mounted to the house with the help of concrete pilings underneath the frost line. You can get your sunroom done on the top of the deck.


4 season sunrooms


To make this kind of sunrooms ideal for usage during winter season, its floor must be properly insulated. Presence of a knee-wall foundation below the frost line can be preferably a good option. Double or triple paned glasses and low emissivity glasses can be ideally used for these sunrooms.


Conservatory


If you install a transparent roof on a four season sunroom, it is called a conservatory. They look majestic and can be built as intricately as a home owner wants it to be. Conservatories are mainly used so as to grow exotic plants.


Screen room


This can be an effective way of enjoying nature without the garden pests and bugs disturbing you. They usually have a screen against rain.


Talking about sunrooms, did you know about the latest way of utilizing a it? It can serve the purpose of passive solar heating. In order to use a space for solar heating, it must be built on the south side of a home that is devoid of trees and other barriers that are likely to cast shadows. The back and the floor of the sunroom must be built with a tile or brick that can act as a thermal storage. Thin pipes are fitted parallel to each other with accurate spacing beneath the ground. These pipes merge into a single duct that connects the other rooms of a house, transferring the energy all over.


You must call for a competent company for installation of sunrooms. Harrisburg citizens can consider getting a sunroom in their houses to enjoy sunny days.


Sunday 17 April 2011

Home Guttering Tips

Though most homes have gutters and downpipes to collect rainwater and route it away from the building, in extremely heavy rainfall areas it is often dispensed with, having difficulty carrying the large volumes of rainwater deposited in short periods of time.


For homes with guttering and downpipes an annual inspection should be performed as a minimum, to ensure the guttering and downpipes are free of obstructions and in serviceable order.


Obstructions during periods of heavy rainfall can see household guttering retaining water rather than channeling it away, resulting in rain water running inside the house, damaging plaster walls, or become a fire hazard in summer time in bushfire prone areas.


Once comprising individual galvanised iron profiles manufactured to set lengths, todays gutter and downpipes are made from either continuous length Zincalume steel, Colorbond aluminium, or plastic, with the latter more prone to attack by UV rays than the first two.


For guttering to be effective and prevent "ponding" a minimum gutter fall of 1 in 500 is recommended, with the depth and width of the channeling and profile suitable dictated by local rainfall conditions.


For standard family homeowners most building supply centres carry stock of pre-cut aluminium guttering lengths in a range of standard profiles for replacing small sections of a houses guttering, or for small extension projects, while for entire house replacement of guttering in Brisbane the entire process is generally performed onsite.


Specialist gutter repair companies are able to remove and replace a home's gutters and downpipes in less than a day, a truck onsite rolling out continuous guttering lengths of your desired profile, with one piece generally only required for each continuous, vertical surface.


In areas of heavy rainfall, or where groundwater running towards the footings of a house result in excessive amounts of water, the construction of either a gutter channel or an agricultural (agi) drain, often called a soakage drain, will help prevent excessive water from damaging your foundations, and possibly leaching through to interior walls.


Ideally a drain will be about 200mm wide and 600mm to 900mm deep, with a layer of 20mm screened gravel covering to about 100mm below the ground surface. A layer of shade cloth or similar on top of the stone will help prevent soil seeping through the stone, with dirt being used to complete the backfill.


If you attempt to fix a gutter by yourself be sure to work safely. It can be very dangerous working off ladders without using proper scaffolding or a safety harness.


Tuesday 5 April 2011

Getting to Know the Popular Styles of Home Architecture Today

If you have a fascination of the latest architectural styles, you will for sure go through the process of getting to know each of the new home architectural designs. As you look into it you will be astounded by the variety of the designs and the integration of technology into it.


Learning the different trends will give you the realization to improve your home to a better and bigger one. This will as well give you the chance to apply what you have learned from the latest architectural home designs as well as your preference. The nice thing about the modern styles is they are very eco-friendly.


Read the remaining paragraphs below and you will learn more about the designs.


Environment friend home designs are said to be the in thing in nowadays. Thus, you can hear contractors preferring to use sustainable construction materials. Apart from eco-friendly materials, houses are also made to minimize the carbon footprint of the house. Designs are made to maximize the renewable energy so that they do not mainly depend on artificial lighting. Every room is made to lessen the use of heating device during cold season and air condition during summer.


Prefabricated houses are the highly preferred by aspiring homeowners. The parts of these houses are made away from the site and then transported back to the actual location where they should be built. A lot of contractors are using this since they are able to make houses with better quality in a shorter span of time. There are so many design that you can choose from. Thus, homes can still be made according to the preference of the buyer.


Repurposed home materials are also another option for the builders. Because it is important that everyone should be active in protecting the environment, any form of construction should adhere to this idea. Any residue of houses that are reconstructed or renovated should not be thrown away but reuse it instead. Builders collect them and use them in their projects.


You can also opt for accessible home styles. This is the famous among other designs. They have simpler look that can give the homeowners enough space to move around. And because it is called accessible, they can easily have access to everything need, cabinets, cupboards and other areas.


Modern homes are built in simpler and bigger form. This is to minimize the complication for the homeowners, especially if they have toddlers which would for sure need bigger space to play, everything is made accessible. And houses of this generation are eco-friendly. This ensures the fact that everything should adhere to the idea of preserving the nature. So if you have plans of buying a new house or making one, be sure to take note of the designs discussed above. You can integrate your preference and the styles mentioned to have a personal touch on your property.


Tag : home,home architecture,home styles,architecture