Most homeowners do not think about their skylights until one of them starts dripping onto the kitchen table. That is understandable. A skylight is supposed to be the part of the house you look through, not the part you worry about. But a skylight is also a hole cut in your roof, and how long it stays watertight depends almost entirely on the product and the person who installed it.

Sunset Roofing is now a VELUX Certified Installer, and we have added skylight installation and replacement to the services we offer homeowners across Rochester and Western New York. This article explains why skylights fail, when replacement makes sense, why the best time to deal with them is during a roof replacement, and what a certified installation actually means for you.

Why Skylights Have a Reputation for Leaking

Ask around and someone will tell you skylights always leak eventually. That reputation was earned, but mostly by older products and poor installations rather than by skylights themselves.

Many Rochester homes still have skylights installed in the 1980s and 1990s. Some are plastic bubble domes that yellow, crack, and lose their seals in the sun. Others are early glass units that were flashed with tar, caulk, and hand bent metal. Caulk and roofing cement dry out and crack within a few seasons of freeze and thaw, and once they do, water has a direct path into the opening.

The other common failure is the installation itself. A skylight sits in the middle of a slope that carries water downhill, and it interrupts that flow. If the flashing is not layered correctly with the underlayment and shingles, so that every piece overlaps the one below it, water gets behind the system. In our climate, ice dams make this worse. Water that backs up under shingles in February will find any weakness around a skylight frame.

Modern skylights installed with a manufacturer engineered flashing kit are a completely different story. VELUX designs its flashing to integrate with the roof in layers, and its deck mounted skylights include a pre-attached adhesive underlayment collar that seals the frame to the roof deck. Installed correctly, a current VELUX skylight is as weathertight as any other part of a well built roof.

Signs Your Skylight Is Due for Replacement

Some skylight problems can be repaired. Many cannot, and an older unit that is starting to show its age usually costs more to keep patching than to replace. Here is what to look for.

Water stains on the ceiling or the light shaft. Brown rings on the drywall around the opening, peeling paint, or soft spots in the shaft are the clearest sign that water is getting past the flashing or the seal.

Fogging between the panes. If the glass looks permanently cloudy or has moisture trapped between the layers, the insulated glass seal has failed. The unit has lost much of its energy efficiency and cannot be restored.

Condensation dripping from the frame. Some condensation on a very cold morning can be normal, but heavy, regular dripping points to an inefficient older unit, poor air sealing around the shaft, or high indoor humidity that needs to be addressed.

Cracked, crazed, or yellowed domes. Plastic bubble skylights degrade in sunlight. Once they become brittle and discolored, they are near the end.

Drafts and cold air. If you can feel cold air near the skylight in winter, the seals or the frame insulation are no longer doing their job.

Age. A skylight that is more than about 20 years old is often due, especially if the roof around it is also nearing replacement.

If any of these sound familiar, request a free estimate and we will tell you honestly whether your skylight needs a repair or a replacement.

The Best Time to Replace a Skylight Is During a Re-Roof

If you remember one thing from this article, make it this. When your roof is being replaced, your skylights should be part of the conversation.

A skylight and the roof around it are one system. The flashing is woven into the shingles and the underlayment. When a new roof goes on over an old skylight, the installer has two choices. They can reuse the existing skylight and its flashing, which ties a brand new roof to a 25 year old component and its aging seals. Or they can replace the skylight at the same time, so every layer is new and properly integrated.

Replacing it later is the expensive option. A skylight replacement on an existing roof means removing and replacing shingles around the unit, which can leave a patch that does not match the surrounding roof and adds labor that would have been part of the job anyway during a tear-off. Doing it together means one project, one disruption, and a roof and skylight system that ages together.

There is also a warranty reason. When the skylight is replaced along with the roof, you are not left trying to sort out whether a future leak belongs to the roofer or the old skylight. Everything around that opening was installed new, at the same time, by the same crew.

More Than Just Light

Today's skylights do much more than the units many homes have now. A few options are worth knowing about before you decide.

Fixed skylights are the simplest choice for adding daylight to hallways, stairwells, living rooms, and anywhere that does not need ventilation.

Venting skylights open to let hot, humid air out of kitchens and bathrooms. Because warm air rises, a venting skylight near the peak of a room is a very effective way to clear it.

Solar powered skylights open and close with a remote control, so a skylight over a high vaulted ceiling is as easy to use as a window. They include a rain sensor that closes the skylight automatically when it starts to rain, which matters when you are not home.

Blinds and shades let you control the light. Light filtering blinds soften the sun in a living space, and blackout blinds make skylights practical in bedrooms.

Sun tunnels bring natural light into small interior spaces like closets, hallways, and bathrooms where a full skylight and shaft would not fit.

Modern skylight glass is also far more energy efficient than older units, with low emissivity coatings that help keep heat inside in the winter and reduce heat gain in the summer. In a Rochester winter, a dark room that suddenly fills with daylight makes a bigger difference than most people expect.

What Being a VELUX Certified Installer Means

VELUX has made skylights for decades, and its Certified Installer program is limited to contractors who have been trained on VELUX products and installation methods. For you, that means a few practical things.

It means the person cutting the opening in your roof knows how the skylight, the flashing kit, and the underlayment collar are designed to work together, and installs them that way rather than improvising with caulk and roofing cement. It means you get a skylight installed to the manufacturer's standards, which protects your product warranty. And it means you are working with a roofer, which matters because a skylight installation is a roofing job before it is anything else.

That last point is the one we think matters most. A skylight is only as reliable as the roof around it. As an Owens Corning Platinum Preferred Contractor and a VELUX Certified Installer, we handle the decking, ice and water protection, underlayment, flashing, and shingles as one assembly, so there are no gaps between trades and no question about who is responsible for what.

Thinking About Skylights? Talk to Sunset Roofing

For more than 35 years, Sunset Roofing has protected homes across Rochester and Western New York, and we are excited to help homeowners bring more natural light into their homes the right way. Whether you want to replace a leaking skylight, add new ones during an upcoming roof replacement, or brighten a dark room for the first time, we will help you choose the right VELUX product and install it as part of a watertight roof.

Learn more on our skylight installation page, request a free estimate, contact our team, or call us directly at 585-538-6086. Financing is available too. A brighter home is easier to get than you might think.