Deck-to-sunroom conversion in North Tustin CA - a room your deck can carry

Often, yes, because many older decks can be enclosed with walls, windows and a roof. Whether yours can comes down to the footings, joists and framing, since a deck built only for furniture and foot traffic may need reinforcing or a partial rebuild first. That's the first thing I look at when I come out.

Sunroom construction in Orange County usually costs about $120 to $170 per square foot, and that's a countywide figure for sunrooms in general, not our price for your deck. Larger rooms that need a foundation and come with heating and air conditioning sit toward the top of local prices, and any work the deck needs first adds to it. Your own number comes from the written estimate after I've been under the deck.

Yes, state energy guidance has treated adding a sunroom you heat and cool, or enclosing an existing patio and conditioning it, as an addition to the house. So if you want a four season room on your deck, you're planning a home addition, and we plan it that way from the first visit.

North Tustin is unincorporated, so building permits come from the county's building office, OC Development Services. Its usual permit list names additions, patios and decks but not sunroom conversions, so that office is the place to ask how your job is reviewed, and the county calls it wise to have your contractor pull the permits so they stay responsible for the inspections. We're based in North Tustin and work in many of the cities around it, so we look up which office reviews your address, then handle the applications and inspections for our work.

Find out your zoning, your setbacks, and whether the property sits in a flood plain or a fire hazard zone, because the county says these can change a design a lot. If the county's fire hazard zone map puts you in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, the room has to use fire-resistive features from the state building codes. County planners also check plans against the North Tustin Specific Plan, so it pays to have all of this in hand before we draw anything.

Look the contractor up with the state's Contractors State License Board, which is where Orange County sends owners to check a license. If your deck needs footing or framing changes, ask whether the license allows structural work, because the state bars a residential remodeling contractor from contracting for changes to footings, foundations, load bearing walls or roof structures. We're licensed and fully insured, and I'm glad to go over what your deck needs before you sign anything.