Patio enclosures in Montclair CA - a covered patio you can use open or shut

Most calls start the same way, with a covered patio that's too buggy on summer evenings or too drafty in winter to get much use. The price moves mostly with the size of the openings, the shape the cover and slab are in, and what goes in the walls, since glass and solid walls cost more than screens. The schedule turns on the city permit more than the build, and your own figure comes from the estimate on site. If there's no cover yet, we start with patio cover installation and enclose it from there.

We start by measuring the patio and checking the cover and the slab, because the frame hangs off one and sits on the other, and a sag or a crack is cheaper to fix before the walls go up. Then we settle with you which openings get screens, which get glass or solid panels, and which get a mix. Plenty of folks like starting with screens and adding glass panels later, and when that's what you want, we set up the frame for it from day one so the glass goes in without tearing anything out. After that our crew sets the frame, fits the panels and doors, seals the joints against the house and cleans up.

If you want insulation, heating and cooling, and a room you'll use every month of the year, that's past what an enclosure is built for, and a custom sunroom usually makes more sense. When the slab or cover can't carry new walls, we handle the footings and framing as part of our sunroom construction work. I'd rather settle those big choices up front than find out halfway through the job.

The City of Montclair says all patios require a building permit, so we plan for one on every enclosure here. The application goes to the city's Community Development counter with a plot plan showing where the patio sits on your lot and a detailed construction drawing, and the city has a sample patio plan at the counter or on its website to help. In Montclair a licensed state contractor, the property owner or an agent for either one can pull the permit. When a job needs one, 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.

We're based in Montclair, and most patios we see here sit behind single-story houses on older slabs with an aluminum or wood cover already in place. We find the same mix on jobs in Upland and Ontario, so we check every slab for cracks and every cover for sag before we draw anything.