Skylights Skylights are light transmitting fenestration (products filling openings in a building envelope.

) forming all, or a portion of, the roof of a building space. Skylights are used to convey abundant daylight or toplighting, provide a connection to the outdoor environment to occupants, and often to help fresh outside air enter the space below.
A skylight may be installed for aesthetic purposes, or as part of a general passive-heating strategy

Skylight Basics A basic fixed unit skylight consists of a structural perimeter frame supporting one panel of glazing infill (the light-transmitting portion, which is made primarily of glass or plastic). An operable (venting) unit skylight uses a glazed sash attached to and supported by the frame. When within reach of the occupants, this type is also called a roof window. Unit skylights are typically shipped fully assembled to the job site. Benefits of daylighting with skylights are numerous. Skylights are widely used in daylighting design in residential and commercial buildings, mainly because they are the most effective source of daylight on a unit area basis. The concept is simple; more daylighting means less artificial light and fewer square feet of necessary glazing, thus saving significant energy and resulting in lower financial and environmental costs. Exploring the energy equation in more depth. Savings from daylighting can cut lighting energy use in some buildings by up to 80%. In terms of cost savings,many commercial buildings can reduce total energy costs by up to one-third through the optimal use of daylighting. Efficiencies achievable in residential construction are not yet quantified, but should be sizable as well. The majority of commercial warehouses and box stores built in recent years have used skylights extensively in daylighting design.

1) skylights are able to bring light into centralized areas of a building, 2) daylight is available throughout the day from both ambient lighting from the sky and direct exposure to the sun, 3) modern transparent and/or translucent glazing can be utilized to avoid glare, aid in capturing sunlight at low angles and diffuse light to wider areas of floor space. Even on a cloudy day, toplighting is three to ten times more efficient than sidelighting. Many recent advances in both glass and plastic infill systems have greatly benefited end users of all skylight types. Some are mainly intended to increase thermal performance, some are focused on preserving and utilizing daylight potential and some are designed to enhance strength, durability, fire resistance and other performance measures. Careful selection of skylights is an important step. A balance must be struck between low Ufactor and optimal SHGC values while preserving enough daylight supply to allow for

artificial lights to be used only when absolutely necessary. Use of automatic electric lighting controls should be used to maximize energy savings. Modern skylights using glass infill, like windows, typically use sealed insulating glass units (IGU) made with two panes of glass. Many varieties of Low-E coatings also reduce daylight potential to different degrees. High purity inert gas is frequently used in the space(s) between panes, and advances in thermally efficient glass spacing and supporting elements can further improve thermal performance of glass-glazed skylight assemblies. Plastic glazing infill is commonly used in many skylights. These assemblies typically contain thermally formed domes, but molded shapes are not uncommon. Domed skylights are typically used on low slope roofs. The dome shape allows for shedding of water and burning embers. Acrylic is the most common plastic glazing used for dome skylights today; however, polycarbonate and copolyester materials are also often used as glazing, where additional properties such as impact resistance may be required to meet specific demands.

There are many different types of skylight, with differing designs, materials, and added components. Many people end up choosing a skylight that is far too large for their house in order to try to add as much light as possible. Unfortunately, even the best skylights have much poorer insulation than a comparable space of roof, so a large skylight allows large amounts of heat to escape during cold weather, and too much heat to enter the house during warm weather. There are three main classes of skylight widely in use.

A ventilating skylight may be opened to allow air to pass through. These skylights are ideal for bathrooms and kitchens, where they help to relieve excess moisture and keep the flow of air steady. Ventilating skylights may be controlled by a remote, by a hand crank, or by an automatic sensor which tracks inside temperature. A fixed skylight is any type of skylight which doesn't open. This type of skylight is intended solely to allow light to pass into the house. Lastly, the tubular skylight is essentially a very small skylight, intended mainly for hallways and small rooms where a traditional skylight wouldn't easily fit. A flat skylight is probably the most common, consisting of a square or rectangular piece of flat glass or acrylic, which may be fixed or ventilating. In addition to these primary residential styles, there are four styles of skylight more often associated with large buildings. The hip ridge skylight, The ridge skylight, The lean-to skylight, The barrel vault skylight.

skylight glazing

When selecting a skylight, it's important to consider what type of glazing you should use to improve your energy efficiency. Based on various skylight design factors such as its orientation and your climate you may even want different types of glazing for different skylights throughout your home.

Basic Glazing Materials Glass is usually found on the more expensive skylights. Glass is more durable than plastics and does not discolor. All glass used for skylights must be made of "safety glazing," a generic term for both tempered and laminated glass. Tempered glass is the most impact resistant. Laminated glass is fabricated with a thin layer of plastic embedded near the center of the glass. Both keep the glass from breaking into large, sharp pieces. Skylights are often made with a tempered glass on the exterior side and a laminated pane on the interior side. This arrangement gives maximum impact resistance while protecting occupants from falling shards of glass.

Acrylic plastic was first developed in 1928 and was brought to market in 1933. Acrylic plastic is used in many standard skylights and is the most formable of the skylight glazing options. Acrylic sheet, manufactured by either a cast or extrusion process, can be easily cut.

Polycarbonate was first discovered in 1953 both in the United States and Germany and was brought to market in 1959 as one of the first "space age" materials. Polycarbonate is very durable, highly impact-resistant and can be easily cut. Polycarbonate also can be thermoformed but at higher temperatures and more energy use than acrylic and must also be pre-dried before thermoforming. Manufactured by an extrusion process, polycarbonate comes in monolithic sheets and multi-wall sheets.

Copolyester plastics were first discovered in 1941. Copolyester offers another glazing alternative, providing transparent clarity and a high-gloss finish. Copolyester plastic sheets are also available with a UV-light-absorbing layer providing protection from UV wavelengths and ensuring long lasting product strength, color and clarity.

Fiberglass is a translucent option that can be monolithic, domed, flat or various other profiles and can feature two pieces with an air space for insulation. The pieces create a panel that provides excellent light diffusion. Fiberglass alone is not formable, but can be shaped and molded inexpensively and can be bonded to I-beams and often is used to form structural, translucent panels. Such translucent panels have high insulating values and feature a variety

of grid patterns and color combinations. Fiberglass enables effects that cannot be duplicated with other materials.

Glazed skylights are a design feature whose creative potential is virtually untapped and rarely achieved, Scarborough says. I recently saw photographs of a skylight that was a tentlike structure, complete with wooden poles at the center, over a twisting-and-turning hospital walkway in which the glass panels were glazed into the framing in a shingled fashion. His recommendation is for architects to push the envelope away from the traditional shed shape skylights with clear glass. Whatever the aesthetic and performance needs, there is a glazing material to fill those needs. From considerations of weather or light transmission, the right material for the right job can produce outstanding results across a multitude of criteria.

Solar heat control glazing

Because skylights are located on the roofs, they can result in large amounts of unwanted summer time solar heat gains and winter time heat losses. Manufacturers use various glazing technologies to reduce these impacts. The most common technologies include those also used for window glazing: Heat-absorbing tints Insulated glazing (double-glazed, triple-glazed) Low-emissivity (low-E) coatings Some manufacturers even install a translucent insulation material between several glazing layers to create a more thermally efficient assembly.

Moderating Skylights
Kinetic Design Group, MIT. Michael Fox, Bryant P. Yeh

Moderating skylights shown in the figure demonstrate a networked system of individual skylights that function together to optimize thermal and day

lighting conditions. Each unit contains eight individual panels that slide along four straight lines towards the center of the panel to create an open position. The system maintains structural stability throughout all stages of deployment of the individual units. One of corner joints of a singular unit contains an individual cable attached to a servomotor that deploys the unit as an individual

whole through sliding that joint towards the center. Integrated computer control is done with a system of positional sensor devices attached to each panel. Each panel further consists of photovoltaic cell paneling under which lies a layer of shading film/ moisture barrier of variable self-adjusting opacity. This skin is affixed to a ribbed Plexiglas panel affixed to a structural aluminium frame. Optimum thermal and natural day lighting conditions can be achieved through the algorithmic balance between the individual deployment of the panel units and the individual opacity variances.-------------