Skylights are transparent elements that fill up envelope openings in a building’s roof, covering part or all of the roof’s area, for daylight purposes. They allow natural sunlight to flow into the room and fill it with illumination, to make maximum use of sunlight during the day time.
Benefits:
- The main purpose of skylights is to provide daylighting. Skylights provide a visual connection to the outdoor environment to the interior occupants. When top lighting from skylights is combined with side lighting from windows, daylighting is maximized. Top lighting brings in sunlight to centralized areas of the room, where side lighting cannot reach as much. This helps in more amount of daylight being brought in throughout the day. Even on dark cloudy days, top lighting from skylights is up to ten times more efficient than side lighting.
- Daylighting offers amazing cost savings because with the natural light coming in, fewer lights are used within and for shorter durations throughout the day. This helps residential as well as commercial places to using less electrical lighting, saving energy, lowering costs, and reducing environmental impact. In fact, daylighting can cut lighting energy use by up to 80%!
- Moreover, the natural lighting coming in provides health benefit and combats stress. To add to that, if polycarbonate sheets are used, they will also keep away the harmful UV radiations of the sun, thus bringing in only the good part of sunlight within.
- Looking at it from a designer perspective, the way the light falls through the skylight opening in the roof adds a dramatical effect to your room. You can add this element in a way to highlight an architectural feature within your room too. Skylights when placed appropriately can distribute the light coming in to create interesting interplays of light and shadow on the elements beneath the roof.
- Use polycarbonate roofing sheets for your skylights for the best results. They can be used in combination with steel roofing or with other polycarbonate sheets of higher density or darker colours. Polycarbonates will not only bring maximum light inside, but will also protect the harmful UV radiations. They will also act as light diffusers to soften the incoming sunlight and create interesting light effects.
