Recent skylight work
New York Skylight Installers replaces, installs and supplies skylights in Staten Island houses, cottages and rowhouses. Official VELUX dealer, LIC# 2084179, skylights only since 2005.
Great Kills is the postwar Staten Island house at its most typical. Capes, ranches and split levels from the 1950s and 1960s, asphalt shingle roofs at a moderate pitch, attached garages and a back yard. These are straightforward roofs to work on, which is good news, and the work on them is usually one of three jobs rather than twenty different ones.
The first is the Cape attic. Almost every Cape on these streets has had the upstairs finished at some point, and the light up there comes from two gable end windows and nothing else, so the middle of the floor stays dark all day. A roof window in the slope is $1,004 installed, it opens for air, and in the right size it satisfies egress out of a finished bedroom. Cutting a new opening, framed, flashed and finished on the inside, is $3,850.
The second is the interior room with no outside wall. Ranches and split levels here are wide and shallow, so the hall bathroom, the laundry and the middle of the hallway often have no window at all. That is what a sun tunnel is for. It is a reflective tube from a small dome on the roof down to a ceiling diffuser, it needs no structural opening in a ceiling joist bay, and it puts real daylight into a room that has never had any. It is the cheapest piece of daylight on the price list by a distance.
The third is the straight replacement. A unit that went in during a 1990s renovation is now thirty years old, the seal has gone or the plastic has yellowed, and it sits on a curb that may or may not still be sound. On a sound curb a replacement is $2,287 installed, and the $1,760 standard replacement labor is already inside that figure. A curb that has to be rebuilt is priced after we have put a hand on it rather than guessed.
On a moderate shingle pitch every deck mounted unit gets a step flashing kit, always, and it is in the quote rather than an extra. That is the piece that keeps water out for the next twenty years, and skipping it is how a good skylight ends up with a bad reputation.
Leaking skylight in Great Kills? 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. Read more about skylight repair on Staten Island.
A roof window in the slope rather than a flat unit. It sits at an angle you can see out of, it opens for air, and in the right size it satisfies egress out of a finished bedroom. It is $1,004 installed with the step flashing kit included. Two of them, one on each slope, is what actually lights the middle of a Cape floor.
Yes, with a sun tunnel. It is a reflective tube from a small dome on the roof down to a diffuser in the ceiling, it fits between the joists without a structural opening, and it works in exactly the rooms a skylight cannot reach. On a one storey ranch run it is short and it is the least expensive daylight we install.
A modern sealed glass unit on a correct step flashing kit should run twenty years and more. What fails early is almost never the glass, it is flashing that was caulked instead of lapped, or an acrylic dome that has yellowed and gone brittle in the sun. The flashing kit is in our quote on every deck mounted unit.
That depends on the curb under it, which is why we look before we quote. If the curb is sound the unit comes off and a new one goes on for $2,287 installed. If the curb is soft or out of square it gets rebuilt first, because a new unit flashed onto a bad curb leaks again in a few winters and you pay for the same job twice.
A little, because there are two roof planes at different heights and sometimes a short wall between them, and that wall is where water collects and where flashing details matter. It is not a difficult roof, it just needs the detail done properly where the two planes meet rather than a bead of sealant across it.
For a replacement on an existing curb, usually not. For a new opening or a sun tunnel, yes, because the framing and the ceiling side both get finished and we would rather see the space than guess at it. We say which it is at the assessment.
St. George · Tottenville · New Dorp · Todt Hill
We cover every part of the borough. See skylights on Staten Island, our published prices, or NYC permits and landmark rules. Serving 10308.