Summer is approaching, Spring has sprung, and it’s time to step out from the shelter of our homes and start looking at some roofing solutions. What better time than now to open up your home to the sunlight that’s coming out from behind the clouds.
A skylight is the perfect way to take that sunlight and pour it into your hallway, your bedroom, or your kitchen. Take a moment now to discover how a skylight works, and what the benefits are of adding one to your home.
The best time to install a skylight is while you’re getting some new roofing during Auckland Summer. Instead of rain pouring in, you’ve got sunlight, so whether you’re picking up a retrofit job, or you’re keen to replace your entire roof, you’ve got the weather on your side.
A skylight is a fantastic way to open up a room and make it seem bigger than it is. Beyond that, light makes people happier, provides a source of constant vitamin D, and bypasses the year-round lack of light that parts of Auckland are so notorious for.
There’s a lot more to a skylight than cutting a hole in your ceiling and installing a pane of glass. To harness and redirect the sunlight throughout the entire room, a few components need to work together. The configuration also changes depending on whether you have a flat or vaulted ceiling. Let’s look at the different pieces of a skylight.
There are a few options for a skylight, and their variations fit for different kinds of homes. They can be static and fixed, or you can choose one that opens to allow some fresh air into your home. The biggest difference is actually in the kind of glass chosen to make up the panes.
A skylight is a constant source of light into your home throughout the day, which means that you need to consider what that constant light exposure can do. With warmth and light comes potentially harmful UV rays, so most skylights come with the option for a UV-protective coating of some kind. VELUX skylights (the brand we use in our installations) come with options for low-e or UV-reflective glass, to keep UV rays out while letting the light in.
If you have a vaulted ceiling, then you’ll just have the skylight installed on its own, no further systems required to get the light distributed properly. However, if you have a flat ceiling and a vaulted roof (as many homeowners do), then you’re going to need a lightwell. A lightwell is what it sounds like: a well for light to travel through. It’s essentially a pathway from the skylight to a corresponding pane in your ceiling for the light to travel down. Without it, the light would diffuse into your attic, unseen!
Talk to Roof Auckland—the roofing specialists Auckland can always count on—about getting a skylight installed when we re-roof your property. Elevate your home, bring the outdoors inside, and enjoy some light in every room of the house.
