Thinking you’d like to spend more time outside but don’t want to deal with the bugs, the smoke, the rain and all the other nastiness that can come with it? What if we told you that you could have the best of the outdoors from the comfort of your own home? Could you really have the best of both worlds? Yes.
“How?” you ask slightly disbelieving of this apparent miracle. Windows. Lots of them. Enough to build a whole room with… enough to build a sunroom.
That’s right: a sunroom is an easy, affordable, and enjoyable way to improve your home. You get to extend your living space while adding natural light, take advantage of stunning views, and more. Here’s our five favourite reasons for why you should build a sunroom now.
1. Calgary is Canada’s Sunniest City
Calgary gets the most sunshine hours of any city in Canada. Just how much is that? A lot. Calgary gets 333 sunny days. We get a total of 2,405 sunny hours each year. How many of those days and hours do you actually enjoy? How many more of them would you enjoy if you could spend them inside.
We don’t usually feel like heading out side when it’s -30C, though. What we do feel like doing is curling up by the electric fireplace and in a sunroom with all-season windows. There’s simply no other city in Canada where building a sunroom makes this much sense.
City | Annual Sunshine Hours |
|---|---|
Calgary, AB | 2,405 hours |
Winnipeg, MB | 2,372 hours |
Regina, SK | 2,338 hours |
Saskatoon, SK | 2,328 hours |
Edmonton, AB | 2,299 hours |
Thunder Bay, ON | 2,168 hours |
Fort McMurray, AB | 2,096 hours |
Hamilton, ON | 2,087 hours |
Victoria, BC | 2,086 hours |
Ottawa, ON | 2,061 hours |
2. Sunlight is good for your health
Natural light makes us happier and healthier. That’s not a sales pitch, it’s just science. People asked about their mood say they’re happier when they’re asked on a sunny day. Extra sunlight helps to boost your Vitamin D production and that, in turn, can reduce your risk of cancer (there is too much of a good thing, though, so don’t forget to wear sunscreen regularly!). And on top of that, sunlight helps us lower our blood pressure and improves our cardiovascular health.
With so many benefits, you might be able to put your new sunroom on your health spending. Well, maybe not. But the message is clear: a sunroom boosts your mood and your health. Give us a call! Doctor’s orders!
3. Sunrooms make Alberta winters bearable
A lack of sunshine can make us less SAD. And by SAD we mean Seasonal Affective Disorder: a kind of depression that is most common during the darker months of the year when our melatonin production and sleep cycles are disrupted. And that’s actually quite bad for us. Calgary’s shortest day sees just 7 hours and 39 minutes of daylight. Combine that with office work and we can have days when we see not natural light at all. The dead of winter is, quite simply, a downer.
That changes with a sunroom. You maximize every fleeting ray of light whether it’s December or June. Imagine starting your day with a sunrise bursting through triple-pane glass, spilling over your morning coffee and warming your heart. It sounds pretty nice, doesn’t it? Even better, with high efficiency windows that extra heat can warm up your whole home, meaning that you could just end up spending less on your utilities this year.
4. You get more space to enjoy
Adding a sunroom to your house makes it bigger! Obviously. Okay, we admit that this one is kind of an obvious sunroom benefit. But it’s not to be overlooked. The reality is that during the winter most of our backyards sit, empty and unused: storage space for all that snow and brown grass. It all feels like a bit of a waste, doesn’t it?
Enclosing small portion of your backyard has an outsized impact. Your evenings get a few hours longer. Your plants grow that much more vigorously. Your work from home routine becomes idyllic. Your pets bask in the glory of the sun. Oh, and your yardwork takes that bit less time. With a four season sunroom, your life just gets better.
5. A sunroom increases real estate value
We’ve just told your four great reasons why you’ll love having a sunroom in your life. And you know what’s great? Other people see the same benefits and they’re going to want your sunroom, too. To put it simply: a sunroom boosts your home’s price. It’s a standout feature that makes your house unique and puts it higher on buyer’s lists.
All of the sunrooms we build are made to the same standard as the rest of your home. They’re fully insulated, weather-proofed, and neatly integrated with the rest of your space. That means that if you do decide to eventually put your home with its beloved sunroom on the market, you can expect it to sell for more.