(214) 807-0414Request an assessmentSkylights
A skylight is a hole in the roof with a window in it, and it fails in more ways than a roof does. Before anything is quoted, the useful question is whether water is coming through the assembly at all — because a meaningful share of skylight complaints in this climate are condensation, and re-flashing a unit does nothing about those.
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What this covers
A skylight is the coldest surface in a ceiling plane and it sits in the warmest, most humid air in the house, which collects at the top of a room. Moisture condenses on the glass edge and runs onto the drywall. The distinguishing evidence is timing: it appears in cold weather, often without rain, and it is worst in bathrooms and kitchens.
Fogging or haze between the panes is a failed insulated glazing unit and is a glass problem. Water at the head or down the sides is a flashing problem. Water at the sill only, on a cold morning, is usually neither. Three symptoms, three different scopes, and a repair aimed at the wrong one leaves the owner exactly where they started.
A curb-mounted unit sits on a built-up frame; a deck-mounted one sits directly on the sheathing with an integral flange. Each takes a manufacturer's flashing kit specific to the model and the covering. Step flashing improvised around a skylight is the substitute, and it is the reason most reflashing jobs exist.
What to know
The head flashing of a kit goes under the courses above the unit, so reflashing means opening the roof above it and re-bedding the courses. That is the same constraint as any penetration, and it is why the labor is not proportional to the size of the skylight.
On a vaulted or shafted install, water entering at the roof can travel down the framing of the shaft and appear anywhere along it, including at the ceiling well away from the opening. A stain at the bottom of a shaft is not evidence of where the water got in.
A unit older than the covering going over it will need the roof opened again during that covering's life. That is a defensible decision, and it is not a defensible surprise. A replacement scope should state, per skylight, whether it is being reflashed, replaced, or removed and roofed over, and what each choice costs later.
Choose a starting point
A short, non-diagnostic guide for working out what kind of assessment conversation to prepare for.
Decision support
Four situations, and the sensible next move for each. It does not diagnose a roof, decide insurance coverage, or stand in for somebody looking at the property.
Questions
Probably not. Water appearing in cold, dry weather points at condensation, which is an indoor humidity and ventilation question rather than a roofing one. It is worth ruling that in or out before anyone re-flashes anything.
Yes, and it is sometimes the right answer for a unit that is old, poorly placed or in a shaft that has caused trouble. It means framing and decking the opening, matching the covering, and finishing the ceiling below, so it is three trades rather than one.
No. Fogging between the panes is a failed seal inside the glazing unit itself. The unit is replaced or it stays fogged; the flashing around it is a separate question that may or may not also need attention.
Almost always, and the alternative should be a stated decision rather than a default. The head flashing goes under the courses above the unit, so reflashing while the roof is open costs a fraction of what the same work costs as its own job later. Leaving old flashing under a new covering puts the oldest component on the roof beneath the newest one — the same mistake as reusing step flashing, and just as rarely written down.
Assessment request
Short, routing-only questions. Nothing here asks you to diagnose the roof yourself.