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 Lower East Side has the densest and most intact tenement stock in the city, and that shapes the work. Five and six storey walk ups, flat roofs crowded with bulkheads and old vent stacks, and a stair skylight on nearly every building. A lot of these roofs are owned not one at a time but in groups, by a family owner or a managing agent with several buildings on the same few blocks, and the skylights on them are all roughly the same age and failing on roughly the same schedule.
That makes this one of the few places where it is worth looking at more than one roof at once. When we are already set up on a block, assessing the neighbouring building costs the owner nothing and tells them whether they are looking at a repair this year and a replacement next, or four replacements they should be budgeting together. We will give that answer straight, including when the answer is that a unit has years left in it and should be left alone.
On the individual job the pattern is the one we see all over the old tenement districts. Wire glass or an acrylic dome in a tired frame, a curb buried under successive roof coatings, and a leak that lands somewhere other than under the glass. Replacement on a sound curb is $2,287 installed, a rebuilt curb is priced once we have seen it, and a new opening is $3,850. Part of the neighbourhood is inside the East Village Lower East Side historic district, so the Landmarks path is checked address by address.
Leaking skylight in the Lower East Side? 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 costs nothing. If we are already on one roof, walking the neighbouring ones is straightforward and it gives you a real picture of what you are facing over the next few years instead of a surprise each winter. We will also tell you which units have life left and should be left alone, because a report that says replace everything is not worth reading.
A written scope that names the building and the specific units, a certificate of insurance naming the owner and the agent, our licence number, and a straight answer on what the work does to any existing roof warranty. It goes over in a form the agent can forward as it stands.
Through the bulkhead in most cases, and the stair below it. Where the bulkhead door is sealed, blocked or simply lost we sort out access at the assessment. Material usually comes up the same way. On the occasional building that cannot take a unit up the stair we hoist from the street with a permit for the day.
Sometimes, and sometimes not. The honest test is the condition of the frame and the curb rather than the age of the glass. If the frame is sound and the curb is dry, a unit can run a long time yet. If the frame is rusting at the rebates and the curb is soft, it is going to fail and doing it on your schedule is cheaper than doing it during a storm.
It can, and it is worth knowing before the day. Anything sitting within the flashing area has to be lifted, re-routed or flashed around properly, and on these roofs there is often decades of abandoned pipe and conduit nobody can identify. We look at what is actually there at the assessment and price for it instead of discovering it with the old unit already off.
Yes, and it is usually how these go. A stair skylight is one working day for a straight replacement, and the stair stays usable throughout. Where several units in one building are being done we sequence them so the building is weathertight every night and the stair is never out of service.
East Village · SoHo · Tribeca · Greenwich Village · Chelsea
We cover every part of the borough. See skylights in Manhattan, our published prices, or NYC permits and landmark rules. Serving 10002.