Conserve Energy And Beautify Your House With Skylights

Skylights are becoming more popular as the energy crunch increases and the energy costs climb. House owners, especially those of large houses, are able to save quite a lot on their daytime energy bills by installing skylights.

Skylights are paned openings in the roof to let the sunlight in to the house. The sunlight warms and lights up the inner rooms which otherwise require artificial lighting even in the day.

Wall windows let in just a fifth of the sunlight that comes through a skylight of the same dimensions. That means you get a five-fold benefit of natural lighting and heating, which translates to a commensurate saving on your energy bill.

Natural sunlight opens up closed spaces, making them appear airy and spacious. The smaller rooms of the house, like the kitchen and the living room benefit greatly from this treatment. A skylight for the bathroom is a great way to increase privacy and to make bathing a pleasure in cold weather.

People use green plants to cancel the oppressiveness of enclosed spaces. These indoor plants require costly incandescent lighting to grow well. This prohibitive cost may be the reason why many people reluctantly give up the idea of indoor plants. Skylights obviate the requirement of artificial lighting altogether, so now you can grow all the green indoor plants you ever wanted to at no extra cost!

You will need blinds to control the amount of sunlight coming in to the house. Otherwise your cooling bill will shoot up in the heat of summer! Blinds are quite costly and you may want to look at tints or films which can reduce the amount of light coming through the skylights. These films are much cheaper than blinds and can be applied to the skylights very easily.

Skylights are designed according to the natural sunlight available in the target geographical location and the orientation of the house. Skylights designed for the tropics will not be suitable for use in temperate zones. If your house has an angled roof, then the orientation is also important to maintain energy efficiency.

The general agreement on computing the size of the skylight for lighting up a room is a maximum of 5% of the floor area for areas with a lot of windows, and a maximum of 15% for those areas which are served by few windows. Exceeding these norms reduces the energy efficiency of the skylight.

The installation of skylights requires a lot of care to get the maximum energy efficiency from them. Any errors during the installation will prove costly in the long run. Instead of saving money it will increase your energy bill! So it is best to get a professional contractor with a good track record (which you should look up and verify) to install the skylights for you.