Recent skylight work
Kew Gardens has the best roofs in Queens and the hardest ones to work on. The Tudor and Colonial houses off Lefferts Boulevard and Austin Street carry steep slate and clay tile, some of it original and most of it a hundred years old, and a lot of those houses still have a stair skylight that was built in from the start. Around them sit the prewar co-op buildings, six storeys with flat roofs and a board.
Slate and tile are not shingle and they are not forgiving. A tile cannot be face nailed through, a slate that is levered rather than cut out takes two neighbours with it, and the flashing has to be formed metal lapped into the courses rather than a kit pressed down with sealant. Done properly a skylight in a slate roof outlives the person who ordered it. Done the quick way it is a stain on the landing ceiling inside two winters. This is the work we would rather be doing than anything else.
The old stair skylights are worth asking about before you replace one. A fair number of them in Kew Gardens are sound in the frame and have just been painted over, boarded above, or had a layer of corrugated plastic thrown over the top of them in the 1970s. Sometimes the right job is bringing the original back rather than tearing it out. Sometimes it is too far gone. We will tell you which, and we have no reason to push you either way.
Leaking skylight in Kew Gardens? 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.
Yes, and it is work we like. Slates are cut and lifted rather than levered, the opening is framed properly, and the flashing is formed metal lapped into the courses the way the roof was built. The failure mode on slate is always somebody treating it like shingle and reaching for sealant.
Same principle, different detail. Tile cannot be nailed through the face and it cannot be walked on carelessly, so the unit is set with a soaker and flashing formed to the tile profile. It takes longer than shingle and the quote says so rather than pretending otherwise.
Sometimes, and when it does it is staging and access rather than the unit. A roof steep enough to need staging gets priced with that in it and shown as its own line so you can see exactly what you are paying for. The skylight itself costs the same on a steep roof as on a shallow one.
Often, and it is worth looking before you replace it. We see original frames in Kew Gardens that are structurally fine and have simply been painted shut, boarded over, or capped with corrugated plastic decades ago. If the frame is sound that is a restoration. If it has rotted at the sill it is a replacement. We will tell you which it is and we have nothing to gain from telling you the wrong one.
With the board's approval. On a prewar building the roof is usually the board's and the questions are insurance, scope and the roof warranty. We supply a certificate of insurance naming the building and a written scope the managing agent can circulate without rewriting it.
All of it, including the blocks off Austin Street and Lefferts Boulevard and the co-op buildings along Queens Boulevard. That is 11415, and we are in Kew Gardens Hills, Richmond Hill and Forest Hills just as often.
Forest Hills · Rego Park · Maspeth · Ridgewood · Bayside
We cover every part of the borough. See skylights in Queens, our published prices, or NYC permits and landmark rules. Serving 11415.