Tips for Keeping a Hot Sunroom Cool In the Summer

A sunroom is the perfect place to spend your summer days! Or is it? Although you can technically use your three-season sunroom during the summer, many people find that it’s too unbearably hot. That means the door gets shut in the winter, but it gets shut in the summer too, drastically reducing the amount of time you get to spend enjoying your space.

Don’t give up on your sunporch just because it’s hot! There’s a lot more you can do besides turning on the fan if you find that your sunroom makes you hot and sweaty.

Make Room for a Portable Air Conditioner

Some people have air conditioned sunrooms. Others of us aren’t so lucky. However, you don’t have to pay thousands of dollars to have an HVAC system installed in your sunroom if things get a little too hot during the summer. Portable air conditioners are popular in industrial settings, but you can find residential units as well. They don’t have to be installed in the window either! For just a couple hundred dollars, one can easily be rolled into your sunroom and turned on during the hottest part of the day. Just make sure you make the most of your portable air conditioner. Shut the windows if you plan on using it, and only turn it on when you’re in the room. If your space isn’t insulated—and many three-season sunrooms aren’t—it will lose the cold air fast. There’s no reason to drive up your electric bill for no reason!

Run a Dehumidifier

By all means, run the ceiling fan in your sunroom. If it’s still feeling hot, you can also bring in floor fans to help keep the space cool. However, fans can only do so much. If you find that you’re still feeling sweaty even with the fans on, you may want to consider a dehumidifier instead. Dehumidifiers can be used to cool a room because they pull moisture from the air. Excess moisture can make it feel like it’s a lot hotter than it really is. If you get rid of the moisture, you’ll find that an 80-degree day isn’t so unbearable on your sunporch, even if you don’t have air conditioning.

Know When to Cover the Windows

A sunporch is the perfect place to get a little closer to nature, so why in the world would you want to cover the windows! Covering the windows can keep your sunroom much cooler, but that doesn’t mean you want to keep them covered all the time. Instead, strategically cover the windows in your sunroom. That might mean covering them during the hottest time of the day, or you might want to cover them in the morning if you have east-facing windows. Take the temperature in your sunroom throughout the day and play around with covering the windows to see what has the greatest effect on the temperature in the room.

A few ways you can cover your windows include:

• Installing blinds
• Using curtains
• Using window tinting

Replace the Floors

What kind of floors do you have in your sunroom? Carpet and hardwood can be cozy, but if you want to keep things cool, you may want to consider installing stone instead. Natural stone stays cooler than other materials, which will help keep the temperature inside your sunroom down. Not to mention, it will keep your feet cool if you walk around barefoot! Worried about keeping your floors warm in the fall and into the winter? Bring in a cozy area rug as soon as the weather starts to change.

Make Sure the Space Is Well Ventilated

It doesn’t matter if you have the fans on full blast if your space isn’t well ventilated. The fans will just end up pushing the hot air through the room without getting rid of it. Every area of your home is ventilated. Your sunporch should be too. Consider installing additional vents if the room seems hot, or if you don’t have any vents installed in the first place. If you have windows that open from the top as well as the bottom, crack the tops of the windows during the hottest part of the day.

Don’t think you have to abandon your sunroom in the summer until cooler temperatures arrive in the fall! Try turning on the ceiling fan or bringing in a box fan, but you can also try the tips on this list to keep your space comfortable all season long.