It’s important to use the right materials when building any part of your home or you could be looking at some serious unexpected damage from the weather, pests, or any number of problems. Here at Brady-Built Sunrooms, we like to keep our customers informed so they understand the choices we’ve made in building their top quality sunroom. (more…)

Sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with all the specific terms and phrases if you aren’t involved in the industry personally. That’s why we want to give you the chance to learn about the products we use and why! Today we explain low e glass and its benefits.

“Low e” is short for “low emissivity” or if you want to get even more accurate, “low thermal emissivity”. Reflectivity is inversely related to emissivity. All materials have a value for reflectivity and emissivity. For instance, a red brick has an emissivity of 0.9 and a reflectance of 0.1. Glass is naturally a high emissivity material with a low reflectance value (when viewed at a 90 degree angle). (more…)

Insulating glass is made with a space separating panes of glass for the same reason people used to install “storm windows” on their houses. Air that does not move is a good insulator. Most insulating materials are designed in a way that traps air to create small pockets of “dead air”. This is true about the fiberglass insulation in your walls, the foam plastic in your beer cooler, as well as your favorite sweater. When two pieces of glass are placed close together and sealed around the edges it creates a layer of dead air in between. If the space between is too wide, the air has room to move, that is why all insulating glass is better than single glass windows with a storm window over it. If the gap is too narrow, there is not enough air to act as an insulator, making it less effective. (more…)

Condensation is the process by which water molecules change from a gas into a liquid. This process can only happen when two conditions are present, the first being high relative humidity and the second, cold temperature.

Insulating glass is typically made from two or three layers of glass with a spacer between them. The spacer is typically made from aluminum tubing or structural foam, which assures a gap between the sheets of glass that is filled with dry air or another gas. (more…)

Southern yellow pine is simply an outstanding building material offering a variety of advantages over other woods and manmade materials, starting with the unique combination of good looks and superior performance.

Structurally, southern yellow pine is the best lumber available for lamination.  It’s more durable, flexible, and versatile than any other wood – it even outperforms aluminum and vinyl. Wood offers better insulating properties, too, without any special treatment.

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Post and beam construction, also known as mortise and tenon construction, is one of the oldest and sturdiest methods of building a home. Instead of using nails to hold the posts and beams together, a sort of peg, called a tenon, is cut into the end of one beam and a corresponding hole, or mortise, is cut into another beam or post. The two are fitted precisely together to form a remarkably durable joint which we then finish securing with heavy-duty lag screws. In fact, post and beam construction significantly reduces the affect of wind on a structure, ideal for homes with greater exposure to the elements, such as here in New England. Houses built hundreds of years ago using this method of construction are still standing today.

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We use special Split Silver Titanium Glass in all our sunrooms. Our coating and tinting formulas are optimized for the harsh New England climate so they perform well under a variety of weather conditions and temperatures while maintaining optimum insulating properties all year round.

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The short answer is “yes”, if they’re designed and constructed to handle weather extremes. Every Brady-Built sunroom and conservatory is carefully manufactured in our own environmentally-controlled factory in Auburn, Massachusetts. Because our sunrooms and conservatories are specifically designed and manufactured to stand up to years of exposure to New England’s harsh weather, they remain comfortable and enjoyable year-round.

What enables our sunrooms to handle the New England environment so well? It starts with the materials we use – solid wood. Not vinyl, aluminum, or plastic. We use solid yellow pine and other species chosen specifically for New England conditions. Wood is warmer, stronger, more durable, and versatile than any other material – and it just looks better. Wood has better insulating properties, too, which means it stays cooler in summer and warmer in winter.

The glass used in your sunroom or conservatory is another critical component if you want to be able to use your sunroom or conservatory year-round. That’s why we use Split Silver Titanium™ glass that’s been optimized for the New England climate. Then we seal it with a special proprietary glazing system that offers the lowest seal failure rate in the industry.

The result is a beautiful, durable, solid sunroom or conservatory that’s not only comfortable year-round – it adds value to your home and more fun to your lifestyle.

We admit it – there are some people who think “factory-built sunroom” is synonymous with cheap, cookie-cutter construction and shoddy workmanship. Nothing could be further from the truth – at least not at Brady-Built! We strongly suggest that our customers – or anyone considering purchasing a sunroom – tour our factory to get the facts on factory-built sunrooms. Perhaps the best reason to tour our factory is because that’s the only way you’re going to be able to check out our sunrooms up close – all of our sunrooms and conservatories are built-to-order, so we don’t have a showroom!

Factory-built sunrooms and conservatories are far superior to on-site, “stick-built” models for many reasons. At Brady-Built, we have our own, environmentally-controlled factory that enables us to control every aspect of construction – starting with simply keeping our craftspeople comfortable and happy while they work, instead of being distracted and rushed by harsh, uncomfortable weather.

More than that, manufacturing sunrooms in a controlled environment enables us to maximize the environmental properties of all the materials we use – from maintaining optimal moisture and temperature during wood lamination, to controlling the cure rate of glues and sealants for weatherpoofing. Try doing that when you’re rushing to build a sunroom onsite, in summer’s relentless heat and humidity, or during a fall rainstorm, or a winter snow storm.

So to best tell the factory-built story, we think it’s important that all our customers actually visit our factory. Then they can see for themselves how a controlled environment enables us to manufacture the highest quality sunroom or conservatory possible. Once they understand that, they wonder why anyone would buy anything but a factory-built sunroom.

Every Brady-Built sunroom and conservatory is manufactured right in our own environmentally-controlled factory in Auburn, Massachusetts. Why? Because the only way a sunroom can be built to the highest quality standards is to do it in a controlled environment where it won’t be exposed to adverse weather or be constructed with materials that may have been compromised by being exposed to outdoor conditions for any length of time.

Our sunrooms and conservatories are designed and built specifically for New England’s harsh weather, so it stands to reason that if we constructed them on site, there would be a very good chance that some part of the process would be exposed to snow, ice, rain, humidity, heat, or cold. Any of these conditions can change the properties of the materials or, in many cases, enable moisture to get into the structure itself during construction, encouraging problems further down the road, such as mold, rot, or mildew.

By building sunrooms and conservatories in our environmentally-controlled factory, we have complete control over every aspect of manufacturing – from optimum temperatures that enable glues and sealants to cure properly, to comfortable working conditions that enable workers to perform at their maximum efficiency, unaffected by summer’s heat and humidity or winter’s freezing, damp conditions.

We encourage all our customers to come tour our factory and learn more about how we carefully manufacture each and every sunroom and conservatory. Once you see the Brady Difference, you’ll understand why we’ve earned our reputation as New England’s leading sunroom manufacturer.