Contrary to popular belief, skylights do not negatively affect your home’s energy efficiency because they trap heat during the summer or allow more cold air into your home during the winter. As a matter of fact, when you choose the right skylight and install it properly, it can save you money on your electricity bill, including lighting, heating, and cooling.
The energy efficiency of skylights is more than enough to make up for the cost of installing one. Aside from the aesthetic value skylights provide, they also supply an abundant amount of natural light, which helps illuminate your home, thus reducing the need to use a lot of artificial light. During the hot summer days, skylights can help improve the ventilation in your home by allowing air to circulate.
The technology behind skylights has come a long way. The concern of unwanted heat during the summer and loss of heat inside your home during the winter can now be addressed with different glazing technologies, including glazing, heat-absorbing tints, and low-emissivity coatings (Low-E). Skylight accessories such as skylight blinds are also available to help control the amount of natural light that comes into your home and block off the heat from the sun.
The Remarkable Energy Efficiency of Skylights
Nowadays, more and more people are conscious of their carbon footprint, and one way to help the environment is to make your home energy efficient. Installing skylights is a great way to reduce your energy consumption as they provide both daylight and ventilation.
Proper installation is one of the major factors that affect the energy efficiency of skylights. Installing skylights with the correct flashing and curbs helps keep your home cool and provides heat naturally, reducing your need to use your heating and cooling devices.
Design and installation play crucial roles in taking advantage of the energy-saving benefits of skylights. Aside from ensuring that your skylights are secured tightly on your roof to avoid leaks, choosing the proper glazing will increase their functional features.
The Benefits of Skylight Ventilation
Skylight ventilation offers various advantages to your home, such as increasing comfortability and enhancing privacy. Skylight ventilation also offers:
- Affordability: Skylights are available at different price points, depending on your budget and preference. Considering the energy-saving benefits skylights offer, they are an affordable home improvement piece.
- Control of temperatures: Compared to fixed skylights, ventilated skylights or operable skylights allow you to release the hot air that gets trapped inside your home during summer, and cooler air is drawn in, hence improving air circulation in your home. Having an idea of the best times to open and close ventilated skylights will let you maximise their features, giving you more control of the temperatures in your living space. This also reduces the need to adjust the thermostat, helping you save your heating and cooling unit from wear and tear.
- Durability: Skylights are a secure and durable option to let natural light and air into your home. When you combine highly durable skylights with proper installation, you add tremendous value to your home.
- Improved air quality: Since skylight ventilation promotes air circulation inside your living space, you get to enjoy the fresh air by letting go of the stale air stuck inside the rooms of your home. It also helps eliminate bad odour and mould build-up.
Fixed Skylights
Unlike ventilated skylights, fixed skylights can’t be opened. Nevertheless, they also provide energy-saving benefits such as giving an abundant amount of natural light, helping you reduce your dependency on artificial lights.
Fixed skylights are perfect for dark areas in your home that don’t need that much ventilation, such as the hallways and above the stairwells. They also provide much needed solar heat during colder months.
So if you don’t want to install operable skylights because of safety concerns, opt for fixed skylights and still get the energy-saving benefits of skylights.
Do Skylights Add Heat?
A lot of people ask, do skylights add heat because of the common misconception that they trap heat inside? The good news is that the technology behind skylight manufacturing improved over the years in order to prevent heat from accumulating on the ceiling.
If your concern is the glaring brightness of the sun, skylight blinds are available in our store. Opt for a remote-controlled one to avoid the hassle of reaching your ceiling whenever you feel like closing your skylight blinds.
Operable skylights are the solution to your heat concerns. This type of skylight can be opened to allow hot air trapped on your ceiling to escape while enabling fresh air to enter your home.
Operable Skylights
If you want to get the full energy-saving benefits of skylights, opt for operable skylights. This type of skylight can be opened either manually or with remote control. Choosing operable skylights allows you to not only enjoy the daylight but also enjoy the fresh air from the outside.
Operable skylights will help tremendously reduce your energy consumption since you also don’t need to use your cooling system and electric ventilation that much. It is an excellent investment that also increases the aesthetic value of your home.
How Does Skylight Size Impact the Efficiency of Skylights?
Skylight size is also a factor when it comes to the efficiency of skylights. When selecting a skylight, you need to consider the size of the room. Experts recommend that a skylight should not be greater than 5% of the surface area of a room with several windows. In rooms with few windows only, the surface area of the skylight can be up to 15% of the floor area.
Energy Efficient Skylight Replacement
If you have a tubular skylight and are looking for an energy-efficient skylight replacement, go with operable skylights instead. Tubular skylights only scatter a limited amount of natural light since they are dome-shaped. Similar to fixed skylights, tubular skylights are also not operable, therefore not giving the benefit of improved ventilation.
Modern-day square skylights have improved materials that help prevent heat gain, making them more energy-efficient than before. And with operable skylights, you can easily enjoy proper ventilation, which yields more savings.
What Are the Advantages of Skylights for Sustainability?
One of the main advantages of skylights is that they help with sustainability. Less electricity consumption means more savings and it’s healthier for the earth. As an added benefit, skylights offer a great source of natural light, providing over three times as much light as a vertical window of the same size.
Skylights also help the earth by eliminating moulds and mildew from trapped moisture. In some instances, harsh chemicals, which are toxic to the environment, are used to eliminate mould and mildew. Mould spores also reduce the air quality inside your home and trigger asthma and other allergies.
Overall, skylights help reduce energy consumption on cooling and heating, lower your electric bill, and contribute to a cleaner, healthier environment.
Skylight Installation
Most people are hesitant to install skylights because they think they are hard to install. Vivid Skylights provide an easy-to-follow step-by-step installation guide that anyone with decent knowledge of construction can follow.
Our skylights suit both tiled and metal roofs of various pitches and come with an easy to install flashing kit for roof installations between 15 – 60 degrees. Vivid skylights are also suitable on low pitch roofs between 1 – 15 degrees, but custom flashing (not included) is needed.
Choosing the Right Skylight
To enjoy the energy efficiency benefits that skylights provide, choosing the right skylight is important. Vivid Skylights carry premium standard-sized skylights that fit most residential homes.
Our skylights are made from laminated glass panes for added safety, and the top of the skylights are frameless to stop the water from pooling on the bottom edges of low pitched roofs. We also carry skylight blinds for added flexibility.
Skylights and the Environment
When you install skylights, the environment also benefits. They are not only installed for aesthetic value but also for their energy-saving and sustainable benefits. If you truly want to build a sustainable home, consider installing skylights to help reduce your carbon footprint.