ATRIUM COVERS
Does a dome fit your lifestyle? If so,
here are some diverse options to consider
By J. Patrick Gannon and Marty Arbunich
Living with an Eichler atrium is like living with an attractive but mercurial mate. At first, we are excited by them; drawn to them; we celebrate them. Only later do we discover the downside -- the dramatic moods, high maintenance costs, and big demands.
After four years, our relationship with the atrium has gone through the same range of feelings. In the beginning, it was love at first sight. How unique and visually pleasing. A modern hearth without the messiness of ashes! A place to dance under the stars!
Today, its all different. Now, it's a minor victory not getting rained on answering the front door. Slowly but surely, the hot romance gave way to the cold reality. The biggest shock occurred the first winter in the house. The living room and kitchen, both of which face the atrium, wouldn't stay warm unless the heat was cranked up for ten hours a day. Much to our chagrin, living with "a hole in the house" meant the radiant heat radiates to the outside even faster.
During the summer the bricks in the atrium would bake, their heat streaming into the house along with significant glare. In reality, the times when it was comfortable enough to be in the atrium were few and far between. Eventually, it came down to whether or not the atrium should be covered. Covering it seemed to be the only way to eliminate the obvious impracticalities due to weather and usability inherent in the open atrium.
Solving the problem wasn't easy. There were only a handful of companies in California that addressed our needs, and only two experienced enough with Eichler installations that offered retractable skylight designs.
The retractable skylight products offered by Rollamatic Roofs, Inc. of San Francisco have been on the market since 1958, designs that continue to be refined by architect and founding president David Miller. "No job is too big," admits Miller, who estimates having constructed nearly 1,000 Rollamatic skylights and domes throughout the country, most notably the remarkable canopies on the Marin County Civic Center, Serramonte Shopping Center in Daly City, and the City Center and the Galleria in San Francisco.
By Miller's estimate, more than 300 of his skylights cover Eichler atria, each a custom installation built of lightweight, strong galvanized steel. Electrically operated, the Rollamatic's huge panel covering glides over the atrium cavity, following the angle of the existing roof line, and opens from a fraction of an inch to full aperture. Some designs, when closed, completely seal off outside light; others continue the connection to the outdoors through a number of transparent and translucent panel options, including fiberglass and laminated and insulated glass.
"There are some Eichler owners who want to enclose their garden in a sheltered atrium yet want to continue bringing in outside light," said Miller. "Others want to convert the atrium to additional living space, perhaps creating a family or living room where they can entertain and enjoy themselves year round. What's certain is that each homeowner has his or her own needs and preferences -- and that also contributes to each job becoming a custom installation. From scratch, we draw plans for every project, and design it to reflect the homeowner's needs. We engineer it, build it, and install it all ourselves."
The Rollamatic installation, according to Miller, builds in enough pitch to allow the skylight's water runoff to be directed to the adjacent roof. He also stresses that his installations "do not puncture the roof," and encourages coordinating his efforts with the owner's roofer at installation.
Most of Rollamatic's business arrives by word of mouth, a form of promotion that kicked in with the Eichlers 30 years ago at the onset of rising energy costs and conservation awareness. "Originally, the Eichler folks were buying my skylights to gain tax credits," Miller recalled, "because they tied in well with the government's energy-saving program."
The tax advantages are gone today, but Miller still touts his system as energy efficient. "The Rollamatic provides natural heating by collecting solar radiation, natural air conditioning through the opening panel, and natural lighting from the sun," he claims. Additionally, in the cold of winter, a skylight panel of a high-R-value, insulating material will retard the Eichler's radiant heat from escaping through the atrium opening. Rollamatic offers a five-year unconditional warranty on labor and parts, a one-year on electrical.
A sharp contrast to the Rollamatic, the Eclipse Opening Roof system is so unusual, in familiar terms it can best be described as a collection of giant Venetian blinds that have overtaken the ceiling. As peculiar as that image may seem, the Eclipse nonetheless dovetails nicely with the lines of the Eichler design. Its makeup is simple, thin, and lightweight; and its repeating rows of louvers offset the overhead beams, occasionally throwing long rays of patterned sunlight onto the walls and floor below.
The Eclipse system originated in Australia in 1985. Its design has evolved since then, and so has the company, which set up a U.S. wing in the mid-1990s in Modesto which has resettled in Gilbert, Arizona. There are now more than a dozen dealers in the western United States under the extended monikers, Eclipse Opening Roof USA and Eclipse America. The American branch draws 80 percent of its business from the residential market, mainly through home improvement shows.
Despite a low profile, Eclipse caught the eye of Sunset magazine in the late 1990s, and a feature article led to a flurry of inquiries from curious Eichler owners. What likely impressed those callers was the amount of light and rain control the Eclipse roof offered, and how its S-shaped aluminum louvers -- five inches wide and up to 12 feet in length -- are powered only by a small, quiet motor tied to a 12-volt solar-charged battery.
"With other kinds of systems," noted Eclipse USA president Wally Eagle, "the roof is either opened or closed. And in the middle of a hot day, when the homeowner is looking for shade, the shade just isn't there. The Eclipse is totally adjustable, so now they can follow the sun throughout the day, and allow in as much sunshine and shade as desired. "Then with a flick of a switch, the louvers can be interlocked, and become completely waterproof. Imagine the rain falling down on those louvers, and they're fully locked together to the point that even a high-pressure fire hose couldn't get in between them."
For a few hundred dollars, Eclipse will add a rain sensor, set to automatically lock the louvers when showers are near. When those slightly pitched louvers are closed, according to Eagle, the collected rain drains over the louvers and into nearby gutters, an integral part of each Eclipse installation. While Eagle's Eichler systems to date have been limited to horizontal installations, he feels comfortable with approaching any Eichler atrium and courtyard configuration, even those attached to A-frame roofs. "We do a lot of pitched-designed installations with other homes," Eagle said. "Our product can even stand straight up vertically, an angle that serves as an ideal wind block."
The Eclipse Opening Roof is available in a myriad of colors, though Eagle recommends beige and white for maximum light reflection. Eclipse offers a five-year unconditional warranty on its louvers' powder coating, a one-year on motor operation.
Eventually our search led us to Royalite Manufacturing, Inc., a San Carlos-based company of 12 years which, according to company owners Jack Engdahl and Bob Amarillas, produces approximately 1,000 tailor-made skylights each month. The company also produces custom atrium coverings, both stationary and retractable, which seem to complement the spirit of the Eichler architecture. Royalite has several Eichler installations to its credit, including one of its latest, a beautiful glass dome incorporating a "ridge" design in Foster City. That's where we met the colorful Engdahl for the first time.
Neither Jack, nor the owner of the Foster City Eichler, needed to be convinced that Eichler owners have many reasons to cover their atriums. First-hand experience is the best teacher. But they must have been wondering about our needs, as Engdahl cut to the chase with an essential query: "What do you want to gain from covering your atrium?" His simple question had a centering effect, dislodging essential truths, and we answered as though reciting the Lord's Prayer.
"We want our atrium to gain usability as an interior room," we said with great certainty, "and increase protection from natural elements while retaining the light and feel of openness." That was only part of it. We also wanted to gain some passive solar collection in the winter, and protection from the sun and heat in the summer. And adequate venting was important, to eliminate condensation associated with interior house plants. And lastly, we were looking to boost our property value by expanding the interior square footage. "I can tell you've been thinking about this for along time," Jack responded sardonically. He also seemed sure that he could customize a dome to fit our special needs.
There are many design options and choices to be considered; particular ones met some of our goals easily and others less perfectly. This is essentially the key issue for anyone who considers covering their atrium: what primary goals can be met, and can trade-offs associated with less-important goals be reduced to an acceptable level.
For us, protection from the rain and sun was key, allowing us the flexibility to furnish the atrium room in a way that we could create another living space, be it a playroom, a meditation room, or simply a foyer. However, to meet this goal alone, all one would need to do is extend the roof to cover the opening. But that brings us to our next goal, which is to preserve the light and openness that the atrium brings to the interior of our Eichler. With this consideration, we knew we needed to cover the atrium with a translucent material that protected the room from only some aspects of the sun -- not the light, just the heat. How do you let maximum light in while keeping the heat out?
On the other hand, we also wanted to use the room for passive solar heating in the winter, without turning it into a potential oven in the summer. So, now we wanted a cover that would let the light in year round, but needed to trap the heat inside during the winter and release it during the summer. And that introduced the question of condensation, a by-product of having in-ground plants that required watering. How do you do all of this without turning your Eichler's atrium into a greenhouse?
An obvious solution, we pondered, might be to install a retractable skylight, keeping it mostly closed during the winter and partially open during the summer. But since cost was a concern, and retractable designs tended to escalate the price, the simpler and less-costly solution appeared to be a fixed structure with adequate venting that could be controlled depending on seasonal needs. The materials could solve the problems of preserving light, reducing heat gain, and insulating against heat loss.
We determined that the key ingredient in the mix was the glass, and fortunately in that area we could benefit significantly from new technology introduced over the last decade. Engdahl's new glass specialist recommended a glass product coated with microscopically thin, optically transparent layers of silver sandwiched between anti-reflective metal oxide. These "smart" coatings allowed in visible sunlight while blocking infrared and ultraviolet solar energy during summer, and reduced heat loss by reflecting room-side heat back inside during winter. Jack even had a solution to address our condensation concerns, proposing a 6x4-foot retractable vent, incorporating an electronic rain sensor, at the highest point of our sloped roof line.
Now we're down to making a final decision.
See other Eichler House Doctor stories
|
