Deck-to-sunroom conversion in Montclair CA - a room your deck can actually carry

Most people who call us have a deck they like and don't use much, because it's too hot, too exposed or just not a room. The price mostly moves with the size of the room, three-season versus four-season, how much support the deck needs and whether you want heating and cooling, and the schedule usually turns on the city's review more than on our build. If you're working with a concrete slab instead of a deck, our patio-to-sunroom conversion page is the closer fit, and either way your own number comes from the estimate once we've seen the space.

Your deck has to carry a room now, not just chairs, so I start under it, looking at the posts, beams and footings and planning any added support before the design is final. Then we settle the room type with you. A four-season room is heated and cooled and gets all-weather windows, while a three-season room has uninsulated windows or screens and no heating or cooling, and that choice decides whether the room is comfortable all year or mostly in mild weather. If you're leaning four-season, we put insulation in the walls, floor and roof and choose insulated windows during the build, because adding them later usually costs more. From there we draw the plans, reinforce the deck, frame the walls and roof, set the windows and doors, and clean up when we're done.

If you want a room that's comfortable in August and January alike, our all season rooms page goes through how we build for that. If the space you want closed in is a covered patio at ground level rather than a deck, enclosed patio rooms are usually the better match.

The city's Building and Safety Division issues building permits in Montclair and handles plan checks and on-site inspections, so that's the office to ask about your deck enclosure. When a job needs a permit, we prepare the plans, handle the city paperwork and keep you posted on where it stands, and I'll tell you at the estimate who's pulling it.

Montclair's building design criteria list Seismic Design Category D, E or F, which are earthquake design ratings under the California Building Code, and that matters more on a deck job because the deck is now holding up walls, glass and a roof. At plan check the city may ask for reports from a state-licensed person, such as structural calculations or Title 24 energy calculations for additions, which is another reason we sort out the deck's support before the design is done. We're based in Montclair and work across the cities around it, and we see the same mix of raised decks and ground-level ones on jobs in Ontario and Upland.