While skylights can be aesthetically appealing, are they really a good idea for your home? Before installing skylights, take a look at the pros and cons that are commonly seen with this roofing feature.

Pros:

• Natural Light: One of the main benefits of installing a skylight is to bring natural light into your home. Skylights are especially helpful at bringing natural light into rooms that don’t have the wall space for windows, like the bathroom. People also enjoy watching the night sky through these windows.
• Indoor Ventilation: Some skylights can be opened and closed, which can help create ventilation in your home. They allow fresh air to come into your house and can improve the air circulation while other windows are opened.

Cons:

• Heat Loss: It’s a fact that windows aren’t good insulators. In the winter, warm air escapes through the skylights.  Because of this your utility bills will be higher.
• Condensation: The most common place for a skylight is in the bathroom. This isn’t an ideal area because the colder outdoor air mixed with the warm, extremely humid air after the shower has been running causes a lot of condensation buildup. This condensation can cause water damage to your roof, insulation, and interior drywall.
• Fading: Direct sunlight coming into your home from the skylight can cause your flooring and your furniture to fade.
• Roof Ventilation: Skylights interfere with your roof ventilation, which can cause a whole host of problems later down the road. Proper ventilation allows for air flow from the soffit all the way to the peak of the roof. When installing skylights, this interrupts that airflow.
• Ice Dams: In winter, the skylight will warm up the surrounding roof deck causing the snow to melt. The melted snow will then run to colder areas of the roof where it freezes again and causes ice dams.

After seeing the pros and cons, would you still consider installing skylights in your home? Let us know in the comments below!