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Screen House
Options |
Screen houses are a great addition to
your home or yard and make for a relaxing oasis to rest and
de-stress. If you are looking into purchasing or building
your own screen house, you have a few options to consider.
First, do you want your screen house to be “three season” or
are you only interested in keeping the bugs out in the
summer? A “three season” porch will require you to buy
windows that will close out the wind, rain, and cold when
needed. This is an actual room and will not give you as much
of the outdoor feeling as a true screen house, whose walls
are made of screen only. Both options have their own ups and
downs. I love the feel of screen walls that will allow the
breeze to flow through and make you feel like you are truly
outside. The downside of this plan is wind and rain can
invade your sanctuary. You may want to buy plastic roll-down
shades to keep your furniture dry; or you can buy covers for
your furniture, as you would for a deck. A “three season”
porch will keep out the rain, but may also hold heat.
You can buy screen house kits as a free standing house or
attached enclosure off your home. You can use concrete or
your decking for flooring; but if you are building a deck to
hold the screen house, be sure to lay screens over the floor
joists before you lay your decking, as bugs and mosquitoes
will come up through the spacing on the deck. If you are
adding a screen house to your existing deck, buy some
inexpensive indoor outdoor carpeting to take care of this
problem.
An inexpensive option is to make your own screen house using
4x4’s as a frame and simply nailing screen to the frame. A
roof can be made out of 2x4’s and covered with fiberglass
sheet roofing. Metal is another option for the roof, but
this may attract heat and make your screen house unbearably
hot. A more expensive option would be to make a roof out of
trusses and shingles. If you are making a flat roof, be sure
to make one wall about 3 inches lower to allow the rain to
run off the roof. It is a good idea to anchor any screen
house to a base, whether it is decking or concrete, as a
good wind can easily blow it away. If you are constructing
your own screen house, be sure and apply for a permit.
Screen house kits are not considered permanent and do not
require a permit.
We bought a Patio Mate Screen Enclosure that used one wall
of our home as an anchor and gave us three walls of
screening. I love this enclosure. The sliding door can be
placed anywhere on the enclosure for easy access. You do
have to order an anchor kit to anchor the screen house to
your deck. Fir strips used to anchor the kit to the house
are also not included. The other comment I have is that the
instructions were fairly hard to follow. We are quite adept
at putting things together and this was a full day’s
project. I think their screen houses would probably be
easier to erect than the enclosures attached to your home.
We had to use a portable enclosure due to zoning laws in our
area, but I would have much preferred to just build my own
with 4x4’s and screen. The screen kits run anywhere from
$500 to $1000 and up. |
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