Recent skylight work
New York Skylight Installers replaces, installs and supplies skylights in Staten Island houses, cottages and additions. Official VELUX dealer, LIC# 2084179, skylights only since 2005.
Stapleton is old Staten Island, the streets below Bay Street and the bigger houses climbing up into Stapleton Heights behind them. Three and four storey frame houses from the 1880s through the early 1900s, a lot of them long since divided into apartments, with later brick and postwar infill filling the gaps. The skylights here are mostly original openings that have been worked on more than once.
The call we get most often in Stapleton is from somebody who already paid to have the skylight replaced and it still leaks. That is an infuriating position to be in and it is almost never the glass. In nearly every one of those jobs we have opened up, the unit itself was fine and the way it was flashed into the roof was wrong for the roof it was on.
There are two versions of it. A curb mounted unit bedded down in a thick bead of roof cement instead of being flashed, which looks sealed on the day and opens up the first winter as the mastic hardens and the roof moves. Or a deck mounted unit with a step flashing kit fitted on a roof too shallow for it, where water sits instead of running, gets under the laps and goes straight in. Neither of those is fixed by more sealant, and both get sold a second new skylight when what failed was never the skylight.
So when we are called to a unit that has already been replaced, we open the flashing rather than quote a unit. If the existing skylight is sound and the flashing was the failure, the honest job is to reflash it properly, and we will say so. If it does need replacing, a straight replacement on a sound curb is $2,287 installed with the $1,760 standard replacement labor inside that number, and a fixed unit on a pitched roof comes with the step flashing kit it actually requires.
On the cut up houses the skylight is usually over the common stair and it is the only daylight in the middle of the building. An old acrylic dome up there will have yellowed and clouded badly and the shaft shows it. Glass does not yellow. If the shaft is dark, painting the walls flat white before we close up costs very little and does more at the bottom of a three storey shaft than most people expect.
Leaking skylight in Stapleton? 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.
Nearly always the flashing rather than the unit. The two we see are a curb mounted skylight bedded in roof cement instead of being flashed, which lets go as the mastic hardens and the roof moves, and a deck mounted unit with a step flashing kit put on a roof too shallow to shed water, where it gets under the laps. Both look fine on the day they are done.
Often yes, and if that is what we find we will tell you. If the unit is sound, correctly sized for the opening and not fogged or cracked, reflashing it properly is the real repair and it costs a great deal less than another unit. We would rather do that than sell you a second skylight for a fault the first one never had.
Because it is a sealant and not a flashing. Sealant is meant to back up a mechanical detail, not replace one. It hardens, it loses the little bit of movement it had, and the roof underneath it expands and contracts every day of the year. Flashing works by lapping metal so water is sent back out on top of the roof, and that keeps working whether or not anything sticks.
Noticeably. An acrylic dome yellows and clouds over twenty or thirty years and loses a lot of the light it started with, and a tall narrow shaft shows that more than a short one. Glass does not yellow. Painting the shaft walls flat white while we have it open is a small cost that makes a real difference at the bottom.
No. The owner of the building signs, because the stair is common space. What does need arranging is getting to the roof, and in these houses that often means going through one apartment or up a hatch inside one. Whoever that affects is told in advance and the date is set around them.
Replacing a skylight in its existing opening is normally maintenance and needs no Buildings permit. A new opening does, and starts at $3,850 cut, framed, flashed and finished. Landmark coverage on this part of the island changes block by block, so we check your specific address before anything is ordered. Our NYC permits and landmark rules page explains what is involved.
St. George · West Brighton · Dongan Hills · Todt Hill
We cover every part of the borough. See skylights on Staten Island, our published prices, or NYC permits and landmark rules. Serving 10304.