Question about converting sun room to all year use

[James Egan]

I live in the northeastern U.S., and have a 12 x 16 sun room. It's maintenance free, and the inside walls are vinyl aluminum siding. There are 4 windows on one wall, and 4 on another wall, which are about 3' x 5'. The ceiling is perforated soffit, which allows the room to "breath". I'm considering replacing the ceiling with an insulated drop ceiling, and placing an electric heater out there. Without the perforated ceiling, I should loose much less heat. My question is, without the perforated ceiling, would I have to run a heater out there all winter long, or risk condensation? I don't want to get into a situation where I have to heat the room for 23 hours a day, so I can use it for 1 in the winter.

-Thanks

[marson]

James, my guess is that it will be fine, providing you aren't somehow adding lots of moisture in there. And even if there are moisture problems, running the heat all day isn't going to solve them. There are no guarantees though. There are too many unknowns to really predict what is going to happen. Even without the vented soffit, you might be disappointed with the effort it takes to heat the room in cold weather.

[Norminn]

You can probably heat it well enough that you won't freeze spending time out there. With direct sun it will probably be comfortable, but you would lose a great deal of heat with metal/glass all around. How warm do you want it, for what purpose?

[Cshenk]

I suspect if there were major moisture problems, he probably have signs of it now?

True. Also, have a similar setup here. Dehumidifier will solve much of my problem.

[James Egan]

I spend about an hour most nights out there, having a cigar. My wife like to read the Sunday paper out there. We don't use it that much, which is why I'd hate to spend much money heating it. Now if I could NOT heat it, then when I wanted to use it press a button on a remote control to a heater out there, that would be nice. I'm just afraid that without the holes in the ceiling that it will get damp and moldy out there, depending on the weather.

[Tom G]

I don't understand why it would be damp out there unless you tried to heat it with a gas un-vented heater. I suspect that the reason for the vented soffit ceiling is to let Summer heat escape up and out through the soffit vents or roof vent. Therefore the room might be unbearable in the Summer with your changes unless you add a/c or open all of the windows and hope for a breeze. We just added a 10 x 30 sun room on the West side of our house...of course it is well insulated and has double pane windows but we it find perfect with the two 220 volt baseboard heaters in the Winter and a wall mounted a/c unit for Summer. It stays about 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the house during the Winter and about 10 degrees hotter than the rest of the house in Summer with the door to it open to the house and just the house furnace/ac unit running. We just turn the sun room heaters or a/c unit on 15 to 30 minutes before we intend to use it. On the other hand, if I smoked cigars, my wife not only wouldn't let me leave the door open to the house, she'd never read the Sunday papers out there.

Tom G.