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.
Hell's Kitchen is tenement walk ups and rowhouses wedged between the theatres and the river, and a large share of them have been converted to co-ops and condos over the last thirty years. The building stock is close to what you find further downtown, five and six storeys with a flat roof and a skylight over the stair, but the roofs themselves are busier. Mechanical plant, water tanks, cell equipment, roof decks and the risers that serve the buildings around them all compete for the same few hundred square feet.
That congestion is the part that decides the job here. A skylight needs clearance around it to be flashed properly, and on a crowded Hell's Kitchen roof the thing sitting in the flashing zone is often a condenser or a conduit run that belongs to somebody else. Working out what can be moved, what has to be flashed around, and who owns it is part of the assessment, not a surprise on the day. Replacement on a curb that is still sound is $2,287 installed, and a curb that needs rebuilding is priced once we have seen it.
Access is the other one. The streets west of Eighth Avenue are busy at every hour, the blocks around the theatres have their own rhythm, and there is nowhere to put a truck without planning for it. Standard units go up through the building. Anything that will not make the stair gets hoisted from the street with a permit for the day, which we arrange in advance. A new opening cut, curbed, flashed and finished is $3,850, and a roof window in a sloped top floor starts at $1,004.
Leaking skylight in Hell's Kitchen? 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.
Almost always, but it has to be looked at first. A skylight needs clear space around it to be flashed into the roof properly, and on these roofs that space is often taken by a condenser, a duct or a conduit run. At the assessment we work out what moves, what gets flashed around and who owns the thing in the way, so nobody is negotiating with a neighbour while the old unit is already off.
By planning it rather than hoping. Most units go up through the building and need nothing from the street beyond unloading. Where a unit is too large for the stair we hoist from the street with a permit for the day, booked ahead. We tell you which one applies before anything is ordered.
Nearly always the building rather than an individual shareholder, because the stair and the roof are common elements. That means the board approves it and the building pays for it. The practical effect is that it goes on a board agenda, so we write the scope and the insurance paperwork to be read and voted on at a meeting.
Only in parts. There are individual landmarks and some protected blocks, and much of the area sits outside any historic district, so this is checked against the specific address rather than assumed. The Special Clinton District governs zoning here but it is not the same thing as a Landmarks review. We confirm what actually applies to your building before pricing.
A roof window, in nearly every case where there is a real slope to sit in. It reads as a window from inside, it opens for air, and in the right size it works for egress. It starts at $1,004 installed. A flat skylight belongs on the flat part of the roof, not in a slope.
Sometimes, and sometimes the deck is the reason the skylight is failing. Decking laid straight over a roof traps water and debris against anything it covers, and we have found curbs rotted out under a deck that looked fine from above. If a section of deck has to come up to do the work properly we say so at the assessment and put it in the price.
Chelsea · Upper West Side · West Village · Greenwich Village · Harlem
We cover every part of the borough. See skylights in Manhattan, our published prices, or NYC permits and landmark rules. Serving 10036 and 10019.