How to Select the Perfect Skylight - The Buyer's Guide

The Benefits of Installing a Skylight

5 star energy rating - Cutting down on your carbon emissions, skylights are the natural alternative to harmful, wasteful and expensive electric lighting. Not only does utilising natural daylight reduce your electricity bill, but it also impacts the environment positively as it is a sustainable energy resource, boasting a 5 star energy rating.

Wellbeing - Unlike a dehydrating air conditioner, an electric venting skylight has the health benefits of a ‘natural exhaust effect’. The warm air is drawn up through the venting skylight, providing cool, fresh air throughout the house. The natural light filtering through the house also provides valuable Vitamin D and limits eye strain.

Productivity - Regular exposure to natural light has been proven to increase productivity and performance. Positively affecting our sleep cycle and vitality levels, natural light is an important part in maintaining a healthy and constructive lifestyle.

Mould reduction -The benefits of natural light aren’t just limited to your carbon footprint and your bills. Mould loves dark, indoor spaces to grow in, and can be extremely damaging to you and your family’s health. Allowing natural sunlight into your home through a skylight will greatly reduce the risk of mould.

Architectural appeal - Balancing the light in the room, skylights reduce glare and transform living areas into more open, safe spaces. Conventional incandescent bulbs don’t do your home justice; skylights bring white, flattering daylight into your rooms, showing off your home’s best features.

4 Important Factors to Consider

Purpose

Installed for an array of purposes, skylights can be utilised as a practical source of natural light to increase the visibility around your home. Alternatively, they can be used as a feature to turn a dark space into the most vibrant entertaining room in the house. Before choosing your skylight, consider what you need it for.

Placement

The placement of your skylight will affect a few factors. For instance, it will determine the size of the skylight you are to install, as well as how many skylights you need. Skylights are usually positioned in the middle of the room.

Size + Shape

The size of the room room can sometimes affect your choice of skylight. For example, an obscure shaped room and roof may require multiple bends in tubing to achieve the optimal performance of your skylight. However, when it comes to skylight size, the general rule is: the larger the better.

Accessories + Options

There are various accessories that can can increase the comfort and convenience of your skylight. For example, blinds and horizontal shades can decrease the amount of light and shield your skylight from rain if need be. It is much better to include these things in your initial purchase than wish you had after the fact.

What are my Options?

Solatube Daylighting

A cost effective lighting alternative, the Solatube daylighting system is quick and easy to install - requiring no structural alterations. Available in two sizes, these skylight types can adapt to any room that you want to illuminate.

Benefits:

Redirects low angle sunlight
99.7% reflectivity
Leakproof and hail resistant
Installation in under 2 hours
100% UV filter

Best for: Complex applications which require light in areas where natural sunlight is nonexistent.

Velux light and Ventilation

Offering a wide range of products, Velux are a high quality producer of both electronic and manually operated roof windows, skylights and accessories. No matter your lighting situation, Velux will have a skylight that can suit your budget and your needs.

Benefits:

Manual, solar or electronically operated
Reduces radiant solar heat gain
Designed to withstand the harshest climates
Reduces heat loss

Best for: Bringing dark spaces to life, particularly rooms with no windows, ventilation or natural light. Included with your solar or electric skylight is the Intelligent touch screen remote control.

Belray Ecolite

A revolutionary glass skylight, the Belray Ecolite system is available in custom, modular or single units. An insulated, double glazed glass unit, this clean and modern skylight exhibits extremely high light transmission with very low solar heat gain.

Benefits:

Reduces UV radiation by 95%
Exceeds 5 star energy rating
Similar to Velux - transparent
Colour neutral light transmission

Best For: Residential and commercial projects such as office buildings, community centres, education, health care and public buildings where maximum light transmission with low solar heat gain is required.

Selectolite

Offering diffused solar energy and high light transmission all year round, SelectoLite is a state of the art skylight system. In winter, SelectoLite allows solar energy to penetrate and warm the building. Conversely, in summer, it reflects the sun’s rays and prevents heat penetration while transmitting indirect natural light into the building.

Benefits:

Optimises both winter and summer sun
Insulating dome gives extra heat reduction
Energy efficient and non-glare

Best for: Hospitals, schools and offices where reduction of solar heat and glare are important.

Intalok

A popular way to introduce natural light into the centre of any building is to use glass in a section of your roof. Intalok is a thin section aluminium glazing bar system, using the highest quality structural grade aluminium that can suit a wide variety of requirements.

Benefits:

Premium Glazing Option
Versatile Improves the wellbeing of your family and appearance of your home

Best for: Enhancing the architecture and design of the room, suits larger areas, can be applied as glass glazed roof, kitchen, living room and dining spaces, star voids or custom designed areas.

Skylights - Choosing the right one

Here are some tips to help you choose the right skylight.

With such a large range of skylight options, we understand that choosing skylights can be difficult. Knowing what style, type, or even where to put a skylight in your home can be confusing. With over 50 years of experience, you can trust the professionals at Belle Skylights to help make choosing a skylight easy! Call Belle now to discuss your daylighting needs.

It is important to first consider the purpose of your new skylight. Skylights can be selected as a functional source of daylight for a dark room or they can be used as a feature to turn a dark room into the best room in the house.

Skylights can make a significant contribution to energy efficiency and comfort in any building by providing “cool light” - a skylight can deliver over three times as much light as a vertical window of the same size!

Humans, like plants thrive under natural daylight. Our bodies are designed to operate in line with the sun’s natural daylight schedule – rising with the sunlight in the morning and sleeping after dusk. This helps to set our body clock and circadian rhythm.

Daylight can affect productivity and performance!

Students concentrate better under daylight
Worker productivity is increased under daylight
Retail sales are greater in day lit areas.

Skylights provide flexibility in architectural design. A small dark room with no windows can be transformed to feel “larger” by bringing daylight into the room. lounge Bathrooms and ensuites benefit by bringing light in through a skylight in the roof, eliminating the need for a window and allowing extra wall space to be used, improving the design of the room.

Here are some tips to help you choose the right skylight.

1. Skylight vs. Roof window

Skylight types include round, square and rectangular and can be glazed with moulded domes or glass. A traditional skylight includes a reflective light shaft from the skylight to the ceiling and is closed off at the ceiling with a diffuser. This type of skylight provides an excellent functional light source.

A roof window has clear glazing that you can see through and is typically installed with an open plaster or timber light shaft. Roof windows are a great way to enhance the look & feel of your home. They provide a clear barrier bringing daylight and nature into your home.

Roof windows can also come in a range of manual or electric opening to allow any room to be filled with light and ventilation, making them useful for kitchens or bathrooms

Advanced tubular daylighting devices (TDD) have highly reflective tubing, allowing amazing levels of light to be transmitted over distances and into spaces that until recently would have been impossible.

2. Position

sky

The positioning of your skylight is key to ensuring that the correct amount of light will enter the space at different times in the day. It is also imperative that you carefully consider the roof structure and any electrical wiring or plumbing that may be in the roof space which could be in the way of the skylight. Skylights in bedrooms will need some form of blind or dimming device to prevent light from entering the room too early in the summer months.

3. Space

Skylights can be as effective in smaller spaces as they are in large ones. Whether it is a small bathroom or a large scale living area, natural light can be focused through the use of a skylight to give a great feeling of depth and space in your home. Natural light is also very useful in separating rooms and living areas, and can make any room feel more spacious and inviting.

4. Shape and size

The shape of your skylight can greatly influence the theme of your home. For a more modern house, square or rectangular shapes can add complexity to the aesthetics of a room. Curved stairwells can be highlighted by a circular feature skylight. Keep in mind that not every room can have a skylight installed in a central position due to the building structure. Tubular skylights can be installed in an “off centre” location and lessen the visual impact of this. Choose a shape that says something about your home and adds a unique aesthetic quality!

5. Type

At Belle Skylights we offer an enormous variety of skylights for every application. Energy efficient skylights like the Belray Ecolite and the Belray Selectolite; economical solutions for any budget application such as the Belray Opallite or Belray Suntube, the full range of VELUX skylights and roof windows, and the advanced Solatube daylighting system range.

6. Glazing

Skylights can come with moulded acrylic (perspex) or polycarbonate domes. They can also be single glazed in glass or have double glazed, low-e, insulated glass. Low-e is an invisible microscopic coating on the internal surface of the glass panel that blocks infra-red heat and increases the insulation properties of the skylight. Glazing is important to consider when thinking about the energy efficiency.

When selecting any energy efficient double glazed glass skylight it is important to select a product that has the lowest u value (the ability of the glass to retain warmth in the room), the lowest solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC - the ability of the glass to block solar heat from entering the room) and the highest visible light transmission (VT).

For more tips give the professionals at Belle Skylights a call on (03) 9555 2388.

How to Select the Perfect Skylight - The Buyer's Guide

The Benefits of Installing a Skylight

4 Important Factors to Consider

What are my Options?

Skylights - Choosing the right one

Here are some tips to help you choose the right skylight.

Daylight can affect productivity and performance!

Here are some tips to help you choose the right skylight.

1. Skylight vs. Roof window

2. Position

3. Space

4. Shape and size

5. Type

6. Glazing

Picking a Skylight Enquiry