I have never had a skylight. I have enough trouble envisioning cutting a hole in a perfectly good roof where moisture can get IN, to see if I would then go place said hole in a room where moisture then wants to get OUT.

I have been in a bunch of houses with this in the bathrooms. They have potential to get spider webby and since they are Above the ventilation fan in the bathroom (unless you mount a fan outlet vertically on the wall of the shaft) steam can affect the paint over time.

How about solatubes?

Thanks for the reply. I live in a pretty dry/sunny climate in California (25 inches of rainfall annually). Temps are pretty mild year round - we get a couple of weeks of hot weather every summer (90s-100) but mostly its in the 80s in the summer. I'm more concerned about the design of the skylight and feel comfortable with the "hole in the roof" concern. My mother in law has several skylights in the Seattle area and has no issues with moisture coming in despite frequent rain. My concern is more how to design a skylight...

We have 2 skylights in our exercise room. The wells are deeper than I expected. Seattle area. No leaking, no cobwebs, really. I do like the natural light.

You can make the "shaft" any size--larger than or smaller than the skylight in the roof. The shaft can also taper from the size of the opening of the skylight to any size at the ceiling line. If it was my house I'd probably locate a high CFM ventilator up in the shaft, venting through the roof adjacent to the skylight. If you are striving for a "tight" house this will take some creativity with the calculations. Good luck!

We have a skylight in DD's old bathroom. Since there was only a tub and no shower (hand-held one for the footed tub), moisture was not a problem. It did blow off around Thanksgiving one year - torrential wind and horrific rain. I think when a new roof was installed they didn't re-do the flashing properly but who knows. Anyway, we replace it and no further problems. Her bath would be very dark without it. The down side is that it gets the morning sun so she used to close the door when she went to bed at night if she was sleeping in the next morning; her sons now do the same if they're having a sleepover.

please consider SolarTube

We have both Velux and SolarTube in various areas of two different houses. I haven't seen too much of a difference other than that the larger diameter ones obviously provide more light than the narrower ones. Never had a leakage or other problem with either one (other than our cleaning lady inquiring how to "shut them off").

The three in our old house just came down through the attic and lit up an interior bathroom and hallway. I've got five in the new house. Two light up my shop through the attic. The other two not only come down from the attic, but they pass through an entire upper floor before illuminating an interior room in the floor below.

Definitely have flared shafts. It's done all the time.

I had a skylight installed in a medium size bathroom 25 years ago. Still no leaks. It looks great and has opened up the room and the adjoining bedroom. One of the best things I ever did.

I Have a cellular shade which diffuses the sun. Also I have solar tubes in the hallway and hall bathroom. I like those as well , lots less money. I have a large skylight in the kitchen, great light, but , architecturally, I think I would have done two smaller ones.

Are you getting an operable skylight? There are skylights made specifically for energy efficient roof installation. I would get an operable skylight in a bathroom. They can work in tandem with a vent fan. There are a variety of options for shading skylight either from the inside our outside of the home.

If you use a solatube instead of a skylight, the solatube can incorporate a bathroom fan and a light, and a light baffle, too. Loved my solatubes.

We have an older skylight installed by previous owners in a hall bathroom (we have several more skylights..only one installed by us recently when we rebuilt and added to the house; and almost all of these are deep..I didn't measure but looks like around 4 feet maybe?). It looks totally fine, it provides very pleasant light, and improves height perception. I think it benefits this otherwise non descript bath a lot a lot. Didn't experience moisture problem with it personally but then we've just moved last December so just one winter albeit a very rainy one. We re in Southern Ca as well. sorry can't provide a pic right now..

We also have deeper skylight in the hallway next to the garage(small space), in one of the smaller bedrooms..I think they really are great addition to these rooms, they look proportional too

I do have a pic of my daughter's bedroom..of course it's bigger than the bath and you can't see the details of the skylight, but whatever pic I've got:

ah, yeah..reading previous responses-ours are probably flared, everywhere..if I understand the term correctly

except for the living room one but there it's not deep

April never ends- any idea what the measurements are of your skylights? I am trying to figure out what size skylight and with a flared tunnel how big the ceiling opening should be. I am thinking a 24x24 skylight in laundry room but wondering if too big. Your comments and picture are really helpful, especially since your skylights have deep tunnels and are in smaller spaces.

Glad to be helpful. As for the measurements..here, I'm afraid I'll need for my son and husband to be home and get on the ladder..:) if you're willing to wait..

bardzil:

Some things you should consider when looking for a finished size opening or the rough opening.

You should know if you have trusses or stick built framing. If you have trusses and money is no object, disregard this. Otherwise for a 24" x 24" finished size, you will have to cut the bottom cord of the truss if your trusses are 24" OC (on center). You will need an engineer any time a truss is cut, if you do it legally and to code. The size between 24" OC members is 1-1/2" less. So you basically have 22-1/2" max. the one way between the bottom cords. Then you take away for drywall or other finish. Example: 1/2" drywall on each cord would reduce the opening to 21-1/2".

For a stick frame, it's simply headers etc. The framing or roofing contractor should know how to do this without much difficulty.

Generally skylights are bought to fit between the framing members such as 16" OC or 24" OC. So as not to make a huge project out of it, unless money is not a consideration. They do sell them larger, and it all depends how much you're willing to put into the project.

On flared shafts, on a trussed structure. It is less costly to flare only parallel with the bottom cords (what your ceiling drywall is attached to). Otherwise you will need that engineer.

On a stick framed structure. It is rather, dare I say simple, to flare parallel and perpendicular.

One of the first things on the agenda is to scope out the proposed work. You don't want someone taking a sawzall to the ceiling, only to discover they cut through wiring etc.

We have stick built framing (no trusses). It's a renovation and this part of the house is new construction except for the foundation (all new framing).