Acrylic Skylights
Acrylic skylights are the domed units on most Tucson homes built from the 1980s onward. If yours is a bubble rather than a flat pane of glass, it is almost certainly acrylic.
They are still a good product. They are lighter than glass, they cost less, they can be formed into shapes glass cannot, and they take an impact without shattering. What they do not do is last forever in Arizona sun, and that is the honest version most people never get told at installation.
Call About Acrylic Skylights
What An Acrylic Skylight Actually Is
The technology goes back to the 1980s and has not changed much, which is a point in its favor. A formed acrylic dome, sometimes polycarbonate, set into an aluminum frame with a thermal barrier.
Most come in one of two mounting styles. A self flashing unit has an integrated flange that sits directly on the roof deck and gets tied in underneath the roofing material. A curb mounted unit sits on a raised frame built up above the roof surface. Which one is on your roof matters a great deal when it comes time to replace it, and it is one of the first things we look at.
Acrylic also comes in clear, bronze, and white or opaque finishes. Clear gives you the most light and the most heat. Bronze cuts glare. White diffuses the light and is usually the right answer over a room where you do not want a hard bright spot moving across the floor all afternoon.
Where Acrylic Beats Glass
- Cost. An acrylic unit is meaningfully cheaper than a comparable glass skylight, both in product and in what it takes to get it up there.
- Weight. Lighter units are easier to handle on a roof and put less demand on the framing around the opening.
- Impact. Acrylic does not shatter the way glass can. On a roof that takes debris, that is worth something.
- Shape. Domes, pyramids and custom sizes are straightforward in acrylic and expensive or impossible in glass.
- Fit. Custom sizing is easier, which matters on older Tucson homes where nothing is a standard opening.
Why Acrylic Skylights Struggle In Arizona Sun
Ultraviolet light breaks acrylic down. Everywhere. Tucson just does it faster than almost anywhere else in the country.
You will see it before you feel it. The dome goes yellow, then cloudy, and the room underneath gets dimmer year over year in a way that is easy to miss because it happens so slowly. Then the material goes from bright and slightly flexible to rigid and brittle. At that point fine cracks start spreading across the surface, and once they reach the frame the drainage channels stop doing their job.
Figure 15 to 25 years on a well installed acrylic unit in Tucson. North facing units last longest because they take the least direct sun. If yours is yellowed and rigid, it is not a repair candidate, it is telling you it is done.
Replacing An Acrylic Dome
This is a large part of what we do, because there are thirty years of these units on Tucson roofs and they are all aging on the same clock.
The complication is sizing. Dozens of manufacturers have sold skylights here since the 1980s, plenty of them no longer exist, and almost none of them shared dimensions. A dome that looks identical to yours can be a quarter inch off and it will not seat correctly. So the real question on every replacement is whether a custom lens and retainer ring gets you a proper seal for less than a complete new unit costs. Often it does not, and when that is the case we tell you rather than selling you the more expensive path to the same place.
The other thing worth knowing is that a new roof is the right moment to handle this. Setting twenty year old yellowed domes back down on a brand new roof means the only way to change them later is to open up new work.
One Installation Mistake To Watch For
New acrylic units ship with a protective film over the lens, and it is meant to come off by removing the retainer ring.
Cutting it away with a utility knife instead scores the acrylic. The damage is invisible on day one and turns into fine cracking within about two years, and the scored debris can block the drainage channels the unit relies on. We get called out behind this constantly, long after whoever did it has moved on. If a unit that should have fifteen good years left is cracking at year three, that is usually why.
Not Sure What You Have Up There
Most people do not know whether their skylights are acrylic or glass, self flashing or curb mounted, or how old they are. That is normal. Describe what you can see from inside, and whether the dome looks yellow or cloudy from the ground, and we can usually get you close before anyone drives out.
If you are seeing stains or water, start with skylight repair. If the room is just dark and you are adding light rather than fixing it, that is new installation.
Call About Your Skylight
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