How to Choose a Skylight

 

With the many options available for skylights, picking the perfect model for your home can be daunting. Don’t fret! Our daylighting experts are able to guide you towards a skylight suitable for your location, rood and lifestyle. Read our guide below to learn what to consider when picking a skylight and accessories.

 

 

Picture the average lightbulb, Now picture sunlight streaming into a room in your home. There’s no comparison, right? By opening interior space to the outdoors and the sun, skylights usher in unparalleled brightness and vibrancy.

Even as the transform the character of formerly dark, gloomy interior spaces, skylights also deliver a practical, bottom-line benefit. Sunlight is free, after all, so that means adding a skylight is subtracting from your month-to-month electricity bill. Whereas older skylights earned a reputation for unpredictable performance, mainly due to moisture problems, the technology has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years. In fact, today’s homeowner can choose among skylight options that weren’t readily available or didn’t even exist, only a few decades ago.

 

Our Solatube Tubular Skylights are a compact, efficient and cost-effective daylighting solution, perfect for any home or space.

 

On the roof, a weatherproof collector captures daylight, then channels it into your living spaces through highly reflective metal tubing. Where the light tube terminated, a special lens takes over to diffuse the harvested sunlight, evenly spreading it through the room in a pure white glow.

Durability

 

When picking a skylight, consider your climate and your home’s location. Does your home encounter intense weather conditions, such as heavy rain, snowstorms or even hurricanes?

 

Certain skylights, like our Solatube tubular skylights, can be paired with a variety of seamless, self-mounted flashing options and curb-mounted caps to provide leak-proof protection. Homeowners can even choose our Tubular Skylight for High Velocity.

 

Hurricane Zones to provide extra protection against powerful winds and hurricanes or our Flame-Resistant Tubular Skylight which is designed to meet the increasing Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) zone code requirements across the United States.

 

To pick a flashing, considering your roof’s angle and material type. Solatube offers flashings to fit pitched and non-pitched roofs, as well as flashings that accommodate tiling such as shingles, Spanish tile and slate roof types.

 

Installation

 

The next thing to consider when selecting a skylight for your home is the installation – the structure of your roof, the skylight placement and the time it will take to install.

 

With Solatube Tubular Skylights, installation can be done in just a couple of hours. That’s because our Solatube Tubular Skylights require no changes to be made on the framing, and there are no major ceiling or wall repairs required on the inside. Rather than contend with rafters and joists, Solatube Tubular Skylights cleverly fit between such components, with the patented fastening system, adjustable-length tubes and angle adapters, all making for a fast and painless remodeling project.

 

So easily routed, Solatube Tubular Skylights can even illuminate those spaces you never thought daylight would reach. Because the light-channeling tube extends up to 30 feet, the room you would like to brighten doesn’t have to sit directly beneath the roof. The tube component of the system can travel through attic, utility and wall spaces to deliver natural light virtually wherever you want it, even the ground floor or basement in a multi-story home.

 

Cost and Energy Star Rating

 

Skylight prices vary wildly, depending on the options you choose. Homeowners are wise to consider, not only the upfront product and installation costs, but also the ongoing impact of the skylight. Though insulated skylights have become the norm, not all skylights are the same. Substandard skylights may lose more heat than a window in the winter or emit extra heat during the summer.

 

Therefore, it pays to insist on a product with Energy Star certification. Energy Star-approved skylights, such as the daylighting systems offered here, at Solatube International, exceed the defined minimum energy performance requirement for climates around the country. Solatube Tubular Skylights receive a 5-star energy rating, which means homeowners won’t have to worry about heat or cold entering their home.

 

Accessory Options

 

The last thing to consider is what type of accessory options will you also need from the skylight?

 

There are multiple accessories and options to consider when choosing a skylight. In some cases, these extras can be the difference between your new skylight being a blessing or a nuisance.

 

With Solatube Tubular Skylights, you can fully customize your system to fit the space that it is in. For bathrooms and laundry rooms, a ventilation add-on kit can be integrated into the system. For bedrooms and living rooms, a daylight dimmer can be integrated into the system to allow the system to be dimmed to any level with a remote-control. There are also additional add-on options like the Integrated LED NightLight and the light add-on kit, which deliver lighting for nighttime use.

 

Now that you’re aware of the numerous factors to consider when choosing a skylight, it’s time to select the type of skylight that is ideal for your home!

 

To get started, visit our website Solatube.com or call us at 888.SOLATUBE to find your local Premier Dealer and schedule a free consultation with our daylighting experts.