Skylight can be defined as a special type of opening provided in the roof of the building covered with translucent or transparent material so as to allow natural light to come into the house directly during daytime.
Types of Skylights for your Building Roofs
There are many types of skylights depending upon the materials, type of use, types of roof and room type. Some types of skylights are discussed below.
Fixed skylight
Ventilated skylight
Tubular skylight
Custom skylight
Pyramid skylight
Dome acrylic skylight
Barrel vault skylight
1. Fixed Skylight
The most popular type of skylights are fixed skylights. These type of skylights doesn’t open for air ventilation. They are completely sealed to the roof.
Fixed skylights are used at low lit areas like stairwell and attics. 90% of the materials used in this is glass. The frame of the skylight is made up of aluminum or timber or steel.
2. Ventilated Skylight
Ventilated skylight is a multi-purpose type of skylight. It does the work of ventilating of light and air. These types of skylights are well suited for kitchen and bathrooms, so that it can remove excess of moisture and keep constant flow of fresh air in the building, while illuminating the place.
This skylight can be controlled manually or automatically or even remote controlled. While rain starts it closes automatically and so on. Due to constant flow of air in the building the need of electrical equipment’s like AC are not required.
3. Tubular Skylight
The new type of skylights in the market are tubular skylight or tube skylight. When the roof space required for fixed and ventilated skylight is not available or very small roof space is available for skylight, this type of skylights is preferred.
Tubular skylight consists of a small tube shaped pipe of diameter around 10-15 inches covered with a spherical dome on the top. This dome collects the light and transmits the light to tube. The tube is made up of silver finished mirror type quality, so that the light transfers completely without any loss of light. This skylight illuminates the rooms evenly. This can be used for specific lighting of objects like living walls or aquariums.
4. Custom Skylight
This types of skylights are preferred when the roof condition doesn’t allow any common type of skylights. Majorly when the aesthetic appearance of the building is to be improved, this skylight adds to the beauty of the building.
They can be of any geometric shape and size as per the requirement. The only things to be ensured in this type of custom skylights are that the material used and the fillets are correctly used. The materials must be hurricane resistant glass and temperature control and rain sensors.
5. Pyramid Skylight
This name of this skylight is given depending on the shape of the pyramid. In this pyramid shaped skylight had on main Rafter with horizontal purlins. It can be made of any size depending upon the requirement of the use.
This type if skylights are usually preferred in for lobbies, entry ways, and other larger spaces. The seal between the glass and purlins is to be properly made as the chances of leak are high. This skylight can be 20feet wide and the length may vary as per the requirement.
6. Dome Acrylic Skylight
These dome shaped skylights are made up of strong and flexible plastics. The shape is in the form of dome as the sunlight is evenly spread in the room rather than direct rays penetrating in the room. If the sun light is not directly coming in the skylight, even in small light, this skylight lights up the room.
Mostly this skylight come in two layers for protection and insulation. A thick outside layer is tainted and inside thin layer which is clear material. Dome Acrylic Skylights may also be used to advantage in building entrances to enhance foyers or spotlight attractive features such as sculptures, murals, paintings, planters, reflecting pools, etc..
7. Barrel Vault Skylight
This type of skylight is frequently used in non-residential buildings. This cannot be used in the residential buildings as the area of skylight is more, privacy aspects are very less. Here complete or more than 80% of the roof area is covered by skylight.
This type of skylight is preferred usually in passageways, canopies, parking shelters, mall arcades, medical and educational institutions, and industrial complexes.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Skylight
Advantages of Skylight
1) They provide more natural ventilation of both air and light.
2) It improves the aesthetical appearance of the building.
3) It minimizes the need of artificial lightning in the room.
4) It provides a healthy dose of Vitamin D, as the sunlight enters directly into the room.
5) It maintains the temperature balance in the room by constantly replacing the hot air by fresh and cool air by the ventilated skylight.
6) Thus reducing the use of Air Coolers and reduces the emission of greenhouse gases.
7) The eco-friendly addition of natural lighting means that skylights can also increase the resale value of a home.
8) Use of tainted glasses reduces the glare effect and evenly distribute the light in the building.
Disadvantages of Skylight
1)The major disadvantage of the skylight us that the amount of light and heat cannot be controlled that comes through the skylights.
2) In summer days, due to more heat coming through the skylights, need of artificial cooling of room is required.
3) In winter days, due to heavy snow fall the temperature inside the room decreases due to the skylight.
4) Accumulation of dust in the skylights, which needs to be cleaned regularly.
5) As the placement of the skylight is in the roof, cleaning of the skylight becomes a hectic job.
6) Due to the improper sealing of skylights, leakage is the major problem faced in the homes.
7) Direct sunlight penetration in classrooms and office spaces often produces an unpleasant glare on work surfaces, making it difficult to work or view a computer screen.
8) The intense sunlight coming through the skylight also can cause fading of exposed furnishings.
9) The installation cost and maintenance of the skylight is more when compared to normal windows.
