Lanai's & Rain
 

We are not planning at this point in time on enclosing our lanai, however, with the recent rain I have been wondering - is there anything you can do to keep the rain or most of it out? I saw an add in the paper from Insulco (I think) about Sunbrella enclosures - do they lessen the effects of rain? Can you see through them? Is there any shade, curtain etc. that you have used for this purpose? I hope to be able to sit out when it is raining, but . . . :shrug: maybe not.

I'd appreciate any suggestions you might have.

Thank you,
Debbie

I put a sunbrella crank out 14' awning over our dining area slider and it keeps out the sun........but they are not made for rain. During heavy rain you have to crank them in or the weight will cause it to be destroyed. I would suggest sliding windows in the lanai.
You can see how they look by clicking on my album here on totv.
OBD

The previous owner of my house had his screen porch enclosed because his wife had bad allergies. The Florida Room is just wonderful. It is heated and air conditoned, faces east for a great sunrise view, and is our favorite room to have morning coffee and read the newspaper.

It does cost quite a bit of money to do that but is totally worth it, in my not so humble opinion.

Best of luck in whatever you decide.

We tiled our lanai and have outdoor furniture on it so the rain does no damage. You could put Sunbrella but when we get a good squall and the rain goes horizontal it'd probably leak. I think it's a choice - close it in - or leave it open. We like it open and use it to BBQ and eat outside a lot when the weather is good.

We put up with the constant cleaning in our screened lanai for several years after we bought our home. I don't know what is in the air here but we were always cleaning black dirt off the lanai and its contents.....we could not keep up with it, even when it didn't rain. In a driving rain you might as well forget about having a clean lanai. We ended up putting in acrylic windows and it was the best money we have spent in the 12 1/2 years we have lived here. When we want the feel of a screened lanai we just slide the windows open. When rain threatens we can close it out in a flash. By adding windows to your lanai you will have a room that you can use more and clean less!

:agree::agree:

VillagesFlorida, How has the
 

acrylic held up over the years.

We are planning to enclose our CYV lanai, and glass has been recommended because of scratching on the acrylic. Has that been a problem? Also wanted floor to ceiling sliders if possible, but have only seen windows that have a bottom panel. Are yours floor to ceiling?

We are hoping to make it a sleeping area in a pinch during the spring, summer and fall so also wondered if it needed to be heated or would leaving the slider into the house open, get enough cool air into the lanai. Costs seem to mount with every idea!

Who was your installer and are they still in business?

Thanks for any input......from anyone.

LW888

We have had our acrylic windows for 7-8 years..I'd have to go find the receipt to get you the exact time. We are very careful cleaning them. My husband removes them (easy to do) and takes them into the courtyard where he washes them using our power washer (gently!) I can get his instructions but I will bet my life he uses Simple Green for the cleaning solution. Wipe gently and let them finish drying. Our windows are not floor-to-celing. You should check with your electric company as to cooling and heating the space. When the heating and air conditioning was laid out for your home it was done according to specific requirements, square footage, windows and doors, etc. Adding space to be heated and cooled may well put a burden on your heating and cooling system. We do not leave the sliding doors open to this space unless our heat or air is off. We hired Express Windows in Belleview to do the work.....we were very happy with the job they did. As far as I know they are still in business.

Thanks VillagesFlorida,
 

I see there are yet other considerations that need more exploring. It occurred to me that if the house is hotter inside than out (as possibly in Nov) then we would have to watch for fogging windows I would think. Maybe acrylic wouldn't fog as much as glass. I expect also that use in the summer would be impossible as a sleeping area because of the heat. Think this needs some rethinking! Thanks for giving me more to consider.

LW888

Yes, LW888, unless you install air in your lanai you will find it just about unbearable in the summer. The high humidity most days will keep you from enjoying that space. If I had to do it all over again I would have just made the lanai an extension of the Florida room, which was originally the lanai, and had a larger, more enjoyable room under heat and air. I don't know if one can customize the floor plans of the courtyard villas anymore but, back in '98 we could have done it that way. Knowing nothing about the seasons here we thought that we would spend those "balmy summer days" sitting in our lanai watching the golfers! Boy, were we surprised! Unheated and not airconditioned, we only use our lanai in the spring and fall.

I agree on the enclosing of the lanai with the sliding windows but not to use acrylic. I have the tinted, double-pane glass in mine. No fogging. That was major point when I bought this house 16 months ago.

I had seen some houses with the lanai only and it definitely is too hot and humid to enjoy for some months.

The heating and a/c makes it great.

As I said, it would be expensive to do - but probably worth every cent.

Has anyone used portable heat and A/C
 

in their enclosed lanai if it can't be drawn from the living room? Don't know if there are any portable units but just thought that if there were, then that might resolve some of the hot/cold issues and would be less costly I would think.

LW888

We haven't enclosed our lanai.

When it is warm and "raining right straight down" as my grandmother used to say, I will sit out there and watch it and swing in my swing and take in the drama of nature.

I love when it rains here. It usually is a good show.

Yourself and others have just answered some of the questions we've been pondering while still up here in the minus ten degrees below zero frozen tundra of Vermont. The winter from hell. We haven't seen snowstorms and cold temps like this since 41 years ago....which makes us realize that as we age, a warmer climate is certainly more beneficial. Can't even imagine the heat and humidity at the moment, but that was an excellent response and suggestion.

Hubby's other question is whether or not a gas powered generator can somehow or other be operated from within the underground gas lines that come into the house.....or does one just use a gas propane tank or bottled gas outside of the home? I'm wondering how that would be in the heat of summer? I realize this isn't the correct place to ask this question, but cannot find where I should inquire. Sorry.

Has anyone presently living in The Villages ever experience a long drawn out power outage with no electricity? How long would a home generator work?
Any details on either building a home with a generator at TV or buying a resale which already has a generator vs. a portable generator such as we have here in Vermont would be welcomed. Thank you all in advance.

Also, I just read that the gas lines are from Leesburg and are customer owned? What exactly does that mean? Does it mean that the home owner owns the pipes from the street to the house? That would make sense. Or is it something else? Obviously, the problems such as recently experienced in the cities with gas line explosions would NOT be expected in newer areas such as TV. We use home heating oil up here...so not familiar with gas.

Would anyone volunteer what the monthly gas bills might be?
Are they connected to the electric bill? Like gas and electric combined as a utility bill?

Our heating oil is astronomical as is our electric. Again, thanks to any and all for their insights.

I DO know that there are portable cooling units that are vented out through a wall or kickplate in the lanai. A friend has one and it is quite noisy. I don't believe I would like sitting in my small 8' X 14' lanai, listening to this! I'm in agreement with Graciegirl that we enjoy just looking out and listening to the sounds of nature.

We also have glass - and were able to draw the AC from the existing unit. Overall, that cost less than the acrylic...

WE also just enclosed our lanai with double pane, insulated, LOW-E, Glass sliders over transom windows. Our heat/AC is connected directly to the house unit (Contractor had to do a HEAT/AIr Efficiency study conducted by Munns at the countys request before county would approve this.) When I say connectd to teh main unit I dodnot mean simply extending the vents in the great room....new heat/ac ducts were run directly from teh furnace to the new lanai area so we get equal heat/ac air flow in all rooms. WE also took out the sliding glass doors to make our great room even more useable.... and this is the BEST investment we ever did. I would not recommend going cheap on windows especially if you have any western exposure in the summer. You need LOW-E. Cost compared to acrylic is only slightly more but the advantages far outweigh acrylic.

The rain and dirt problem plus the summer heat were jjust toooo much for us to keep a screened lanai.

In response to Senior Citizen, we've haven't experienced a power outage in the 2-1/2 years we've lived here. All lines are run underground, except for the one set of high-voltage lines running roughly NW to SE through The Villages. That reduces the occurrence of power outages.

Don't know about gas, since our house is all-electric. We find the electric cost so far quite reasonable. Average bill over the months has been $118 for a 2,037 sq. ft. CBS house. Highest bill ever was $169 at the peak of the heat last summer in August. I think the double-paned windows help a lot with both climate control and street noise...we haven't found the need for a generator.

We are able to use the lanai in the summer, as it faces ENE, but find it too cold in the winter. But, as Gracie said, it's lovely to sit out and watch the rain (when it's warm).

Ah, Gracie. Brings back memories of my childhood. I used to climb up into the attic to hear the sound of rain on the roof. Just relaxes me. One time so much so that I fell asleep and my folks couldn't find me for quite a while. I heard about that for a long time. Even here, I will go out into the lanai during heavy rain just to sit and listen.

One thing to consider when choosing glass vs acrylic windows is that glass will increase property taxes. Apparently using glass transforms the lanai into a "room", for tax purposes. This was what the window company told us back when we had the acrylic windows installed.....is this still the case? We have experienced no scratching and no fogging with the acrylic windows and we love our low property tax bill!!

Rain in Lanai
 

We are in the middle of new construction so there is always dust on our lanai and in our home, We did add gutters to the back of the home and completely around the lanai. IT has helped tremendously. Hills Gutters did the work and they did a nice job at a super nice price, but I may have just hit them when they were hungry.

Gracie & Mikeod,

Also one of my favorites on a rainy day. Just love to sit on my large lanai (which is full of tropical plants) and have a cup of Starbucks on a rainy morning. I have also been known to run in the rain. People will tell me the oddest things about running in the rain. Most of them say you will get sick. With that reasoning, you should get sick every tiime you take a shower. Winter here is my favorite time since it rains a lot.

Batman,

You are in Hawaii? and you are drinking Starbuck's coffee? I have heard that Kona coast coffee is one of the best in the world (next to Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee). Why drink Starbuck's at $3.50 per cup instead of brewing your own Kona coffee?

Just curious - not making judgement!

I'll bet that in persuing Penguin, Riddler, Joker, Catwoman and so many kinds of villans, that you encounter many a rainy days where you must really enjoy the chase!
http://www.batmanytb.com/images/smiley/batman3.gif

Ahh, running a couple of miles in the warm summer rain is one of my best memories.

:wave:

Tbugs,

Yes, I am still in Hawaii. I actually prefer Starbucks Columbian over the Kona bean. Just a matter of personal taste. Most of the Kona you see is a blend and not 100% Kona bean. 100% Kona is very expensive. We sometimes vacation in Kona and visit the coffee plantations to sip some of their fresh coffee.

K9-Lovers,

The only thing better than running in the rain is hiking in the rain forrest in the rain. Watch out for the wild pigs. There are no snakes in Hawaii so you can hike without worrying about where you go. We bring our lunch to eat beside the stream and waterfall. The wife picks Guava, mountain apples and avocado which makes my backpack a lot heavier coming back down the mountain. We will surely miss the year round tropical outdoors when we move.

Batman 911, it sounds like paradise except you are missing our cute, wiggly snakes!

.:angel:

Lizards
 

Speaking of the cute, wiggly snakes, did you see in the Orlando newspaper that full grown Nile monitor lizards - and some juvenile monitors - have been observed and captured in the Ocala National Forest? These are about 4 feet long and eat just about anything. I would hate to run across one of them in the weeds by one of the water hazards.