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Retractable screen doors are the perfect solution for doors that lead into a garage or to a deck. They take up less space than traditional storm doors. They are also used on front entry doors where you don’t want a visible storm door.
It is heard all the time, “I would love to sit out on my deck, but the bugs and mosquitoes are too much of pain in my you know what.” In Richmond, Virginia, there is a descent amount of rainfall and often results in standing water in buckets, old tires, bird baths, etc that promotes the growth of those worrisome mosquitoes. There are also a lot of water ways, lakes, ponds, and wetlands where mosquitoes and other pests can thrive.
Unfortunately, until now if you live in Richmond, Virginia you don’t have a lot of choices when it comes to living bug-free outdoors. Let’s look at some of your choices and the pros and cons of each. First and probably the most common solution homeowners choose are the Three or Four Season Sun rooms. These rooms are pleasant, full of glass and open air.
The major down side to these sun rooms is that they are expensive! They can range from $20,000.00 -$70,000.00. Four season rooms also require the homeowner to spend more on energy bills because you have to heat and cool them year round in order to use them. They become very hot and almost unbearable in the summer and extremely cold in the winter. Usually some sort of ceiling fans, portable heater or ac unit is needed to keep these Three Season sun rooms comfortable. 
Another reason is that they don’t give you the outdoor feeling of some of the other alternatives to sun rooms or screen rooms. For the cost you would almost come out better adding a room addition with a lot of glass.
Next you have the traditional screen rooms. These screen rooms tend to tie well into the structure and architecture of a home. Depending on the size they can be rather expensive as well, because it is usually a lot more construction involved. If you want or need to tie it into the existing roof of your home, expect to pay more. Traditional screen rooms that are not tied into a roof structure tend to cost less. The major down side to the traditional screen rooms or screen enclosures is the materials used. Most are constructed out of wood and fiberglass screening. However, the wood used to build the screen walls will deteriorate over time, forcing you to have to redo them. Over time, the screens tend to get very flimsy with normal wear and tear. Do not allow one of your kids or other kids horseplay push the screen by accident because it is likely that they will go through it! The wood needs constant maintenance, everything from power washing to re-staining or simply replacing because of warping or splintering.
The Home Exterior Guru has found one solution that stands above them all, Suncoast Screen Enclosures! www.suncoastenclosures.com Suncoast Screen Enclosures are perfect for the Richmond, Virginia climate. Don’t get me wrong, you cannot use these in the winter time. They are ideal for nice weather during spring, fall, and summer months. They are a mosquito and bug-free solution that allows you and your family to enjoy the outdoors the way it is meant to be enjoyed. They are open, airy and totally customized to your home or deck situation. They can be attached to your home, built as a free-standing screen room or gazebo, or configured to cover an odd shaped deck. The best thing is the construction and openness you feel in these screen rooms. When you have weather like there is in Richmond, Virginia, you have to have materials that can withstand the extreme swings in the temperature and precipitation. You know there has been snow in the beginning of the week and it may be 65 degrees by the end of the week. With temperature swings and constant forms of precipitation falling that can be very abusive to wood on a traditional screen room. Suncoast Screen Enclosures are constructed out of aluminum 2”x2” posts and 4”x4” or 6”x6” ceiling rafters. The posts have the strength of a 4”x4” or 6”x6” wooden post without the maintenance. Best of all it’s totally customizable, meaning you can have a choice in design and color such as white, brown, earth tone, wood grain or any of the other colors offered to match or compliment your home’s exterior. The aluminum framing materials are maintenance free and do not obstruct your view like traditional wood post. The method in which the screening is secured in the framing is also very unique and dependable. Most other screening is either held in place with a wood lath or a half circle spline. The screens in the Suncoast Screen rooms are held in place with a D spline. The D spline is unique to Suncoast and it is the standard way used to secure the screen. When you look at the spline hole from the side it looks like a capital letter D. It requires a two-step process to push the screening in place, making it three times stronger and durable than any other method I have ever seen. They have different shading and density of screens also, giving you more protection from the wind and sun, as well as better protection from smaller insects. Best of all these screen rooms make you feel like you are truly outside! You can have a screen roof or a polycarbonate (Lexan) roof. The screen roof is the one system homeowners in Richmond, Virginia have to get use to enjoying. However, once you sit under a screen roof at night and look out at the beautiful Richmond sky you will never want any other kind of roof over your head in your screen room! You really feel like you are outside minus 
MR. MOSQUITO, ANNOYING FLIES and other PESTS! The polycarbonate roofs come in about three to four different shades which allow you to be covered and shaded or covered and have completely unobstructed views of the sky. I have found one company in the entire Richmond area that carries this product line and that is Kemp Windows & Siding. You can request more information on their website www.kempwindows.com or give them a call. I did notice their website is not updated with the Suncoast Screen Enclosures, but they do design, build, and install them. One last point people always want to know is how do these room hold up in the snow. Well the simple answer is the Suncoast Enclosure manufacturing facility is out of Edmonton, Canada. Guess what? Canada has three times more snow than Richmond, Virginia ever imagined. Not to mention, the wind speeds in some of the Canadian country are much stronger than anything we normally experience. So if you are looking for a truly well-built, shape retaining and attractive sunroom or screen room alternative in Richmond, Virginia try the Suncoast Enclosures offered by Kemp Windows & Siding.
Some Thoughts About Home Improvement & Maintenance
Some of the things we do in our homes are considered home improvement and other things are considered maintenance but it can be said that, in the end, doing maintenance will usually lead to home improvement. Let me give you an example of the relationship between home improvement & maintenance. I have a client with dogs and when they were puppies they decided that certain spots on the rugs were litter boxes. After much effort, and swearing, he got them to use the litter box but the damage to the rugs was done.
He tried maintenance like cleaning and things like that but in the end he wound up cutting huge chunks of his wife’s fairly new rugs up to get rid of the smell and stop the dogs from damaging more of the rugs. Luckily, his wife loves hardwood floors so now she has decided that since the dogs have ruined the rugs, and the attempts to clean the rugs have not been totally successful.
They hired a company to create hardwood floors. That is the relationship between home improvement & maintenance, sometimes continued maintenance on a problem area can lead to an act of home improvement that, in the end, was probably the best thing for that whole situation in the first place.
Jack’s back porch gutters
Another client, Jack, provides an example of the relationship between home improvement & maintenance is Jack’s back porch gutters. He has a roof, which of course has gutters on it, and then the deck is all in the back yard. He lives in the country so the snow and pine needles can accumulate in the gutters if not watched. He’s been maintaining the situation for a couple years by getting a telescoping device that allows him to get the snow off the roof so it cannot get into his house by melting.
But, it is obvious that this maintenance is temporary and home improvement by way of new eaves is necessary. But this is the dynamic between home improvement & maintenance, you do maintenance for as long as you can and then eventually home improvement is needed. It is just a matter of getting a good feel for that relationship between home improvement & maintenance and knowing when it is time to do home improvement. Kemp windows has handled many problems like this before.
Don’t Wait Too Long
Sometimes maintenance measures may seem like they are working but then you find out the hard way that they are not. If you have been patching your roof for some time you may think everything is fine but water could be getting in where you can’t see it and then that home improvement & maintenance dynamic needs to shift to home improvement before real damage, or more damage, is done. It is important to always know when it is time to stop maintaining and start improving.
Keep an eye on your house and do not dismiss any potential problem as small or petty. Sometimes it is the smallest problems that grow up to be the biggest headaches and that is something you need to understand in the balance between home improvement & maintenance.
DON’T FORGET – NO MONEY DOWN UNTIL YOU ARE 100% SATISFIED… 
:):)
Here is a picture of a roof that is about to be replaced. Follow the pictures and descriptions along the way to understand every aspect of how your roof should be replaced.
All of the shingles should be removed from the roof decking, even if you have two or more layers.
Once all of the shingles are removed; the roof decking should be free of any miscellaneous debris.
Next, you should have Ice & Water Shield installed on the lower areas of the roof along the gutterline. This is the area that is affected the most by ice building up on the roof and water wicking back under the shingles during rain storms. It should be installed from the gutterline up approximately 3 feet. We take this a step further and we install it around all pipe collars before we install new pipe collars. Ice & Water Shield is a protective coating that does not allow water to penetrate it.
A small area of the peak of the roof is cut out for the installation of the Ridge Vent. Ridge vents have taken the place of the spinning aluminum turbines used in the olden days.
Ridge vents allow the attic to breathe. More importantly it allows hot air trapped in the attic during the winter to escape. Without a ridge vent the hot air from the attic would meet the cold air outside and cause condensation and moisture issues under the new shingles. The ridge vent prolongs the life of your roof.
Next the entire roof is covered with at least a 15lb. felt paper and marked off for the installation of the shingles.
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