Skylight Repair
Most Tucson skylight repair calls come down to one question: is the water coming from the skylight, or from the roof around it? Tucson is hard on both. Monsoon storms drive water at angles a roof never sees the rest of the year, and the sun works on acrylic every day until it goes brittle.
Most of the skylights we open up are not failing because someone did something wrong. They are failing because they have been up there a long time.
If water is coming in right now, or if you are seeing a stain that was not there last summer, the first job is figuring out what is actually leaking. That is not always the skylight.
Call About Your Skylight
Is It The Skylight, Or Is It The Roof?
There is a simple way to tell the difference before anyone gets on the roof, and it changes what the repair costs.
If the skylight itself is leaking, water almost always leaves a visible trail. It starts at the top of the skylight well and tracks down the drywall. You can usually see where it came from.
If the roof is the problem, the damage tends to show up as an isolated stain on the ceiling with no trail running down from the skylight opening above it. The skylight gets blamed because it is the thing you can see, but the water entered somewhere else and traveled.
We check both. If the skylight is fine and your roof is the issue, we tell you that, show you what we found, and tell you what to ask a roofer. Over 30 years of roofing experience is what makes that call reliable.
Signs Your Skylight Needs Attention
Most of this you can check from inside the house, standing on the floor and looking up.
- A dark or brown ring around the edge of the skylight opening. That usually means the internal drainage channels are blocked and water is overrunning them.
- Brown staining on the drywall perimeter. Often the lens itself is holding water.
- Yellowed or cloudy lenses. Acrylic that has gone opaque has been cooking in Arizona sun for years.
- Visible cracking, especially fine cracking that spreads out across the lens.
- A brittle feel. Healthy acrylic is bright and slightly soft. Old acrylic goes rigid and cracks under very little pressure.
- Whistling during storms. That is air moving through a gap, and where air goes, water follows.
Most skylight problems show up either in the first couple of years, from an installation issue, or near the end of the unit’s life. A well installed skylight in Tucson generally runs 15 to 25 years, and north facing units tend to last longest because they take less direct sun.
Why Hardware Store Sealant Usually Makes It Worse
This is the most common thing we get called out behind.
Standard retail silicone contains chemicals that attack acrylic. It does not just fail, it degrades the lens it is sitting on. If sealant is used at all it has to be ammonia free and applied to a completely clean surface, and even then you are looking at a year or two before it starts to go.
Sealant expands and contracts with the heat, then shrinks, then cracks away from the edge. What it leaves behind is a gap that traps moisture against the frame instead of letting it drain. The leak comes back, and now there is standing water where there was not any before.
Most of the repairs we actually perform come down to two things: clearing blocked drainage channels, or replacing the lens. Fixing the cause instead of covering it.
The Skylight Leak Check
When you call about a leak, here is what happens.
- We look at both. The skylight and the roof around it. Flashing, drainage channels, the lens, the frame, and how the unit ties into the roof system.
- You see what we see. We take photos from up there so you are not taking anyone’s word for what is happening over your head.
- You get your options before anything happens. Sometimes it is a repair. Sometimes the honest answer is that the unit is at the end of its life and a repair is throwing money at it. We explain the difference and let you decide.
Repair Or Replace
Repair makes sense when the frame and the structure are sound and the problem is drainage, sealing, or a single damaged component. Those jobs are often done in a few hours.
Replacement makes more sense than people expect, and here is why. Over the last twenty to thirty years, dozens of different manufacturers have sold skylights in Tucson, and the sizing is rarely standard. A fraction of an inch means an off the shelf lens will not seat correctly. Ordering custom lenses and a new retainer ring to get a proper seal frequently costs about what a complete new unit costs. When that is the case we say so.
One thing worth knowing on the insurance question. If a skylight is broken by hail or wind, a policy may cover replacement, but homeowner deductibles often run higher than the entire job. It is worth checking before you file.
And if you are already planning a new roof, that is the moment to deal with the skylights. Tying a new unit into a new roof system at the same time is cleaner and cheaper than coming back to it later.
Skylight Leaks On Flat And Foam Roofs
Flat and foam roofs are common around Tucson, and they create a specific problem that gets blamed on the skylight almost every time.
When a skylight is set into a flat roof, the opening is often cut so the unit sits level with or slightly below the roof surface. Water does not shed off a flat roof quickly. It sits, and it sits right up against the base of the skylight until it finds a way in.
The fix is not more sealant. It is building the curb up above the roof surface so water is diverted around the unit instead of pooling against it. That is a roofing detail as much as a skylight detail, which is exactly why so many of these get misdiagnosed.
If It Is Leaking Right Now
Put a bucket under it from inside and leave the roof alone until the weather clears. A wet Tucson roof is not worth it, and neither is an old ladder you inherited and have not used in years.
Then call us and describe what you are seeing. Where the water is coming in, whether there is a trail down the wall of the skylight well, and how long it has been happening. That tells us a lot before anyone drives out.
Call Now About Your Skylight
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