TRADITIONAL ROOF SKYLIGHTS

Roof skylights: lighting and ventilation

 
Traditional rectangular skylights can provide daylight, views, aesthetics and… ventilation. Recent technologies have improved their performance: heat absorbing tints, double and triple insulated glazed panels, low-e coatings…

 These recent features allow huge differences relatively to old ones, reducing or overcoming their traditional negative impacts.

Problems with traditional residential skylights

Traditional skylights with a bad design and improperly installed are susceptible to heat losses and unwanted summer heat, as well as condensation and air-leaking.

 See, for details on these drawbacks and the ways to overcome them: Skylights & Problems and Drawbacks

Location and sizing

Conventional rectangular skylights demand proper sizing, convenient location in the roof, and well planned strategy for controlling heating gains. They may include:

- shade of leaf-shedding trees;
- special glasses: double glazing and triple glassing with low-emissivity coatings
- heat-absorbing tints (see: Solar films).
- shades and blinds

Glazing

Efficient skylights use use two or more low-E coating glass…

See, for details: Selecting and buying skylights

Traditional skylights and ventilation

Rectangular traditional skylights have an important advantage over modern skylights like the tubular ones. They can be an essential element for natural ventilation: through their openings they allow the releasing of the hot air accumulated near the ceiling…

Most rectangular traditional skylights open outward at the bottom, but some vent through a small, hinged panel. These skylights may be opened automatically (with electric motors, pneumatic devices and even through devices incorporating moisture sensors to automatically close the skylight in the presence of rain) or manually (with a chain, a pole, or a crank).

 




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