Skylights or Windows
Adding a skylight is one of the quickest and easiest ways to make any room of your home lighter and brighter, adding an open and airy feeling. Skylights produce a kind of top-lit architectural drama that windows often can’t match. Moreover, dollar-for-dollar, they’ll usually bring in more light than windows. Installing a skylight in a room that has a finished ceiling with an attic or crawl space above it involves planning both a ceiling opening and a roof opening. Our skylight section takes you step-by-step through how to install a skylight. Plus some useful information on the efficiency of skylights. Check out the feature article on the pro’s and con’s of skylights versus windows.Skylights and windows are often mentioned in the same breath as a fix for dark rooms, as if poking a big hole someplace is all that really matters.
Yet these aren’t interchangeable solutions for the same problem. Skylights and windows have very different daylighting characteristics, as well as a radically different aesthetic both inside and outside. A closer look may help you make the right choice for your home.
First, a rundown of basic differences: A window is placed vertically in a wall, while a skylight is mounted parallel to the roof plane or else raised above it on an extension known as a “curb.” While windows are almost invariably fitted with glass, the majority of modern skylights are glazed with acrylic or polycarbonate plastic in tints ranging from clear to translucent white to a dark smoked color. One exception is the so-called roof window, which is a type of flat skylight glazed with glass and usually arranged to open.
In terms of solar efficiency, a well-oriented window will generally be better attuned to seasonal changes than a skylight. Since window openings are vertical, they admit more of the low-angled sun in winter when it’s most welcome, while blocking much of the high-angled summer sun to prevent excessive heat gain. In fact, with the proper external shading, a window can be “fine-tuned” to admit full sun on the shortest days of winter, yet be completely shaded on long summer days.
Your typical low-pitched skylight, alas, has just the opposite trait: In winter, when the sun is low, it cuts off a great deal of desirable sunlight, while in summer, it lets the high-angled sun come blasting in, potentially overheating rooms. Using tinted glazing and deep, light-diffusing wells can help to compensate for this shortcoming, though neither is really a remedy.
Despite these shortcomings, skylights produce a kind of top-lit architectural drama that windows often can’t match. Moreover, dollar-for-dollar, they’ll usually bring in more light than windows. So which is right for your home?
If the object is simply to brighten a room for the least expense, or to provide some dramatic toplighting, a skylight will do the trick. On the other hand, if you’d like to fine-tune a room to be brighter and warmer in winter while keeping it cooler in the summer, a new or enlarged window or glass door may be a better choice.
Aesthetically, deciding between windows and skylights is more clear-cut. Today’s ubiquitous plastic bubble skylights weren’t in general use until the early 1960s; hence, they invariably look “wrong” on earlier homes, and should be a last resort. If you have a home predating the 60s and still have your heart set on using some form of skylight, consider using roof windows, which have a lower profile, and place them where they won’t be visible from the street. Better yet, challenge yourself by adding light the way the era’s architects would have—with a generous, well-placed window or set of glass doors.
If your home postdates the 1950s, a carefully-placed skylight will probably blend in reasonably well with the overall style. Still, for the sake of a clean front elevation, you should avoid installing skylights on roof surfaces that face the street. Note that a few generous skylights are better than a lot of small ones, both in ease of construction and in the daylight you gain per dollar. And of course, consider the orientation of the units before you install them, so you’ll have some idea of their daylighting value—or lack of it.
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