What Drives the Cost of a Lanai Enclosure

What is actually being enclosed?

A lanai that already has a solid roof and a slab is a different project from an open patio that has neither.

If the slab exists and is sound, a great deal of cost is already absorbed. If it does not, or if it was poured without the footings an enclosure needs, that is foundation work before it is enclosure work.

The existing structure sets the floor of the price, and it is the first thing we look at.

Screen, glass or solid wall?

Screen is the lightest option and the cheapest. It keeps insects out and it does nothing about heat, rain blowing sideways, or noise.

Glass or vinyl panels cost considerably more of both material and labour, and they change what the space is. A glazed enclosure is closer to a room, which has consequences for permitting, for the structure, and sometimes for the property's conditioned square footage.

A solid wall enclosure is a construction project rather than an enclosure, and it is assessed as one.

These are three different jobs. A quote for one is not comparable with a quote for another.

What happens to the roof above it?

Frequently the deciding factor, and the one homeowners do not expect.

A lanai roof is usually low slope, and low slope roofing fails differently from the pitched roof on the house. It holds water rather than shedding it, so it depends almost entirely on the membrane and on how the edges and penetrations were finished.

If that roof is at the end of its life, enclosing underneath it is building on top of a problem. We will say so. Doing the enclosure and the roof together costs less than doing them eighteen months apart, because the access and the mobilisation are paid for once.

Does a lanai enclosure need a permit?

Yes, and the requirements are not trivial in a wind zone.

The enclosure has to be engineered and fastened for the wind load at that address, and the building department inspects it. A screen enclosure is a structure, not a furnishing, and it is permitted as one.

If the house is in a managed community, association approval is a separate process from the permit and generally comes first. A design approved by neither is a design that has not been approved.

What are the unknowns?

The condition of what is already there. A slab can look sound and have no footing under its edge. An existing frame can be aluminium that was adequate under an older code and is not under the current one.

We find these by opening and checking rather than by assuming, and we tell you what we found before we proceed rather than after.

This is the honest unknown in the job, the same way decking is the honest unknown in a re-roof.

Why will you not give a price range here?

Because the range would be so wide as to be useless, and a narrow one would be misleading.

Two lanais of the same footprint can differ by a multiple depending on the slab, the roof above, the glazing and the wind requirement. A number written without seeing those is marketing.

What we will do is come and look, tell you which of those four things apply to your space, and put a real number in writing. No cost and no obligation.