By Shelbi LeMeilleur
Texans know that spending time outside can oftentimes be more of a nuisance than a luxury. With the summer heat, pesky bugs, and never-ending allergens, people are more likely to stay indoors. Sunspace of Texas offers a solution through their porch enclosures, sunrooms, and acrylic roofing systems.
“You can increase your outdoor living satisfaction,” explains Alison Windham, marketing director at Sunspace. “You can take your outdoor area and make it into the room you want it to be.”
One option for customers are the WeatherMaster© Porch Enclosures. “It’s a window screen-in one,” says Windham. “That means all the windows come with the screen in, and then you can take all of the vents out if you wanted to have just screen.”
The porch enclosures are offered in five different colors and are custom-built to suit your needs. Sunspace uses a memory-flex vinyl for the WeatherMaster© products, which is a durable vinyl not easily damaged unless punctured.
“It’s great for kids, dogs, golf courses,” says Windham. “It does not absorb heat like glass, and ... you can tint them, so if you have western exposure, you can tint the bronze and that just helps keep you a little cooler.”
The most popular product Sunspace offers is their sunrooms, which are similar to the porch enclosures with some key differences.
“A sunroom is a glass product, so that would be fully insulated,” says Windham. “If you just want something to block the wind and the rain and the bugs, you can do the WeatherMaster© Porch Enclosure, or if you need something to have HVAC and cooled all the time, do a sunroom.”
Sunspace often comes in to install sunrooms and porch enclosures on or around preexisting porches. However, they have the ability to come in and pour a porch or concrete pad. For those who aren’t looking for an enclosed outdoor space, Sunspace also offers acrylic roof systems.
“If you don’t have a roof over your porch, then we can come in and put that acrylic roof system in,” Windham says. “ We have four different colors all the way from bronze to pearl-snap white. They all protect against UV as our vinyl does, too.”
Windham reassures the acrylic roof systems are high-quality deterrents against the elements. “It’s a high-rated, high-dense acrylic,” she explains. “This lasts much, much longer, and it’s honeycombed, so it breathes and it also has a mildew resistant coating on it. So you can put your hose up there and wash it off and get rid of all the debris.”
Sunspace offers free estimates to anyone interested in creating their perfect outdoor space. The entire process has a seven-week turnaround. Sunspace experts come out and take measurements. The custom product takes about six weeks to finish, and the Sunspace team will frame one day and install the next, typically.
“We don’t have to come in your house, we just come through the backyard, do what we gotta do, and then we are out,” says Windham. “You can be at work, you don’t have to worry about anything.”
After installation, the Sunspace team makes sure the customer knows how to clean the product and always comes back if there is a problem or if a repair is needed.
“People enjoy being outside and they don’t want to be burned and eaten alive, and things get filthy, so this allows you to just create a design and entertain, or have a place for your kids to be or pets,” Windham explains. “I call it a flex room because people have made it into anything from catios [patios for cats] to a gameday room to a reading room to a playroom. There’s just a bunch of different ways you can design it.”
Windham encourages people to visit sunspacetexas.com to see examples of past projects, informative videos, and more.
“This is all just about quality of life and just making it all better,” Windham says. “Just giving you another room — without having to build onto your house, we just take your existing porch and make it another living area.”
