Serving Salt Lake City, UT & Nearby Areas
(385) 438-3591
Serving Salt Lake City, UT & Nearby Areas
(385) 438-3591
Almost never because the skylight failed. Leaks come from how it was put in: the wrong flashing method for that type of unit, sealant applied where the design does not want it, or a location the roof was never going to tolerate. Modern skylights from major manufacturers are good products.
Judge a leaking skylight as an installation problem first, before assuming the unit needs replacing.
The failure is usually in the flashing and its integration with the roof, not in the skylight itself.
Find out which of the three skylight types you have before anyone quotes a fix.
A leaking skylight in Utah is usually a story about the installation. So replacing the unit without fixing the reason just buys you a newer leak.
Mattie Tueller, Master Roofing
The installation, in the large majority of cases. Skylights from the major manufacturers are well-engineered products with tested flashing systems. They perform when installed to their own instructions. What fails is the work around the unit: the flashing, how it laps into the surrounding courses, and whether the right method was used at all.
A homeowner sees water near the skylight and reasonably concludes the skylight leaks. The visible object gets the blame, and the invisible detail six inches away does not. That misdiagnosis is expensive. That's because it leads people to replace a perfectly good unit and keep the actual problem.
The reputation follows the same logic at scale. Skylights are widely believed to leak, when what is actually widespread is installation by people who were never taught how these particular assemblies work. The product ended up carrying the reputation that the workmanship earned. That's unfair to the manufacturers and expensive for homeowners.
Four things, in roughly this order of frequency. Each is a decision made during a few minutes of work that determines whether the assembly holds for twenty years. None of them is visible once the job is finished and the interior is trimmed out.
Caulk is the tell for several of these. A skylight that needs sealant to stay dry was not flashed correctly in the first place.
Because each type is made watertight by a really different method. The methods are not interchangeable. Knowing which one is on your roof is the first thing a competent installer establishes. It changes everything that follows about how the work should be done.
An installer treating a curb-mounted unit like a deck-mounted one, or reaching for a tube of sealant on a type that was designed to shed water without any, produces a skylight that looks finished and is not. That is the whole failure mode, and it takes about ten minutes to create. It then takes several years and a stained ceiling for anybody to find out.
Diagnosis before replacement. Someone needs to establish which type of unit you have, how it was flashed, whether sealant was used on something that should not have it, and where it sits relative to the valleys and flues. Only then does it make sense to decide whether the unit itself is part of the problem.
If the answer to the last question is more sealant, get another opinion. Sealant buys a season and hides the reason for a while longer. That's not the same as fixing anything. You want to hear what will be done differently this time.
The reputation around skylights is that they leak. Master Roofing works on them constantly across Utah. The reputation should be something else entirely: people who do not know how to install them install a lot of them.
I want to be fair about why that happens, because it is not usually carelessness. There are three types of skylight and they are all waterproofed very differently. Some take regular roofing flashing, some need factory flashings from the manufacturer. Some you are specifically not supposed to put sealant on or they develop condensation problems. Nobody knows that by instinct, and nothing in Utah licensing teaches it.
A leaking skylight in Utah is usually a story about the installation. So replacing the unit without fixing the reason just buys you a newer leak. If yours is leaking, ask which type you have and how it was flashed before you agree to buy anything. Most of the time the glass above your head was never the problem.
This article is general information about Utah roofs, not an assessment of yours. Every roof is different, and no article can tell you what is actually happening on your specific house. Have a licensed roofing contractor look at it in person before you act on anything here.
No, and this is a common and useful distinction. Condensation forms on the interior glass when warm humid room air meets a cold surface. That's a humidity and ventilation issue rather than a roofing failure. A genuine leak usually appears at the edges, follows rain or snowmelt. Stains the surrounding drywall. Condensation appears on the glass itself, most often on cold mornings.
Modern units from major manufacturers are generally built to last a long service life, often comparable to a roof. The seals around the glazing are usually the limiting component. What tends to fail early is not the unit but the flashing around it. If a skylight has needed repeated attention within a few years, look at the installation rather than the age.
Often it can be repaired. That's because the failure is usually in the flashing rather than the unit. Correctly reflashing a sound skylight is a real fix rather than a patch. Replacement makes sense when the unit itself is old, the glazing seals have failed, or the location was wrong and the whole thing needs to move to a workable spot.
Rarely, and on some skylight types it actively causes harm. That's because certain designs are not meant to be sealed at all and sealing them traps moisture into condensation problems. Sealant also conceals the actual failure while water keeps working underneath it. Treat a proposal to add more caulk as a temporary measure at best, and never as the repair itself.
The climate adds pressure that a mild one does not. Snow sits on a roof for weeks and melts slowly from underneath. So any weakness in the flashing gets days of contact with water rather than minutes. Wide temperature swings work the materials as well. A correctly installed skylight handles all of that comfortably. A marginal one simply gets found out faster here.
We're here to see what's going on with your roof. A real assessment starts with your history and your attic, not a number from the driveway. You'll get a straight answer about what's up there, what it needs, and what it costs. Sometimes the honest answer is: your roof looks great.