Recent skylight work
New York Skylight Installers replaces, installs and supplies skylights in Manhattan brownstones, rowhouses and lofts. Official VELUX dealer, LIC# 2084179, skylights only since 2005.
The East Village is mostly five and six storey walk up tenements with a few older rowhouses mixed in, and almost every one of them has a skylight over the stair. That is not decoration. After the 1901 Tenement House Act a new building had to get light and air into the stair hall, and the way it was done was a skylight at the top of the shaft, usually with a vented or openable section. More than a century later those are the units we are called to most often in this neighbourhood.
What we find on them is predictable. Wire glass or an old acrylic dome, a steel or wood frame that has been painted and tarred over and over, and a curb buried under coating that was applied to chase a leak nobody ever actually found. The water shows up on the top floor landing or in the top floor apartment, and it almost never shows up directly under the skylight, because water travels along the framing and drops at the first obstruction. Finding the real path is the job. A replacement on a curb that is still sound is $2,287 installed.
The other half of the work here is the top floor apartment itself. These are small rooms under a flat tar roof with windows only at the front and back, and a skylight or a sun tunnel over a kitchen, a bathroom or an interior hall changes how the apartment lives. A new opening cut, curbed, flashed and finished is $3,850. Parts of the neighbourhood sit inside the East Village Lower East Side historic district and parts do not, so the Landmarks question gets checked against the address rather than assumed.
Leaking skylight in the East Village? Start with a professional assessment from New York's original skylight specialists. Skylights are all we have done since 2005: licensed and insured (LIC# 2084179), VELUX Trained & Approved, an official VELUX dealer, 4.9 stars on Google, and a 10-Year No Leak Warranty on every unit we install. Roofers and handymen do skylights on the side; we are the specialists the roofers call. Water dripping from the skylight, a stain on the ceiling under it, a drip that only shows up in a heavy rain: none of that tells you what actually failed. We come out, find the real cause, and give you a straight answer and a price for the right fix, which is usually a new unit. Active leaks go to the front of the schedule.
Because the law required it. After the 1901 Tenement House Act a new tenement had to bring light and air into the stair hall, and a skylight at the top of the shaft was how it was done, usually with a section that opened or vented. That is why you see the same arrangement building after building, and why so many of them are now at the end of their lives at the same time.
Very often yes. Water that gets past a skylight runs along the framing and drops at the first thing that stops it, which can be a joist, a pipe or a light box several feet away. A stain that is not directly under the glass tells you almost nothing on its own. We trace the actual path rather than guessing from where the ceiling is wet.
The board, and then the city where a permit is needed. HDFC boards are usually shareholders rather than professional managers, so we write the scope and the insurance paperwork plainly enough to be read at a meeting and voted on, instead of sending something that needs a lawyer to interpret.
In a top floor apartment, yes, and it is one of the better value things you can do in a tenement. A sun tunnel takes daylight from the roof down a reflective shaft into a room with no exterior wall. It needs a clear run from the roof to the ceiling, which we check before promising anything.
Partly. The East Village Lower East Side historic district covers a number of blocks and a lot of the neighbourhood sits outside it, so this is checked against the actual address rather than assumed either way. We confirm it before the job is priced, because it changes the approval path and the timeline.
Not from the ground, and we will not pretend otherwise. From the roof we can usually tell what the frame is made of, how much coating is sitting on the curb and whether the glazing is wire glass, acrylic or something newer. That is the assessment, it is free, and it is what the price is built on.
Lower East Side · Greenwich Village · SoHo · West Village · Chelsea
We cover every part of the borough. See skylights in Manhattan, our published prices, or NYC permits and landmark rules. Serving 10003 and 10009.