How Much Does a Skylight Installation Cost?

Skylights can be a great way to increase how much natural light your home gets, especially in areas of the house where there aren’t as many windows. 

Natural light from windows and skylights does a great job of keeping your home well-lit and comfortable during the daytime, and can help keep energy bills down by allowing you to keep your lights off throughout the day. 

So if you’re looking to increase the amount of natural light in your home, but don’t have the space or ability to add a whole new window, a skylight or sun tunnel could be the right option for you. 

In an effort to help homeowners interested in skylights learn more about the options available to them, we’re writing this blog on how much a skylight installation costs! 

In this article, we’re going to talk about: 

• How Much a Skylight Costs
• Skylight Cost Factors

Let’s get started!

How Much Does a Skylight Cost?

The prices of skylights and the installation of them exist within a wide range, that is determined by a large variety of factors. These include the type, materials, and size of skylight you choose, how difficult your roof makes the installation, and the contractor you use. 

For the most part you can expect to spend somewhere between $1,000 on the low end, and even up to around $6,000 for the highest priced kinds of skylights on a complex, steep roof. 

But, why is there such a large price difference between these two extremes? Similar to roofs, it’s because there is a wide difference in what is available to consumers, and the types of roofs the skylights are installed on. Some skylights are pretty much just a pane of sealed glass set on your roof, with a hole in your roof decking and material. Other skylights are built into the decking, flush with your roofing material, and can open or close at the press of a button, using power the skylight assembly gathered from the sun. 

Once you start looking at the factors involved in pricing a skylight installation, it gets a lot easier to understand why the difference gets so large. So, let’s talk about those factors! 

Skylight Cost Factors 

Types of Skylights

Though there are additional subcategories of skylights out there, the two primary categories of skylights are fixed, and vented. Fixed skylights are sheets of glass that don’t open up, and only let light into your home, instead of letting air in and out. Vented skylights, on the other hand, open up to let air in and out of the roof. They can either be operated by a button or remote if they are powered by electricity, or if not, may be manually pushed open. 

Underneath the vented category, you can get an electric powered skylight that is wired into your home, or even a skylight that has a solar battery attached to it. That one collects sunlight that hits that area of your roof, turns it into energy that can be used to open and close the skylight when you press a button. Most companies also make a version that can be pushed open and latched shut like the hatch on an old-fashioned submarine.  

Fixed skylights, while far more simple, also have a few different varieties, primarily based on what kind of roof they are installed on. For instance, for a flat or low slope roof, it’s more important to have a skylight with curved glass that allows for water to run off of it more easily than it would a regular, flat glass. 

Skylight Installation Labor

The labor required to install a skylight can also affect the cost of the installation greatly. If you’re getting one installed on your existing roof, the contractor will have to cut off the materials on your roof, all the way through your roof decking, and drywall before fabricating the framing for it. Then they’ll install the actual skylight, before placing back the materials that they can, and installing the flashing to protect against leaks. 

If your roof is particularly steep, or the skylight is in a complex area of the roof, the contractor will likely charge you a little more because of the safety risk associated with working on a roof like this, as well as the extra time it will take to navigate the roof safely. 

Similarly, if you’re getting a skylight installed for a new construction home, or getting a skylight replaced in an existing opening, the costs won’t be as high. For new construction, the contractor will be able to more easily plan to have it installed, and won’t have to go through the process of tearing off the old materials, and for a skylight replacement, a new frame won’t need to be created to fit the light and roof. 

Size of Skylight

For a roof replacement, the bigger the house is, the more expensive it’s going to be to install the materials on top of it. The same thing goes for skylights. The larger the skylight, the bigger the price tag. If the skylight is especially large, it will require a more intense effort, and potentially multiple crew members, to get a bigger skylight into place correctly. 

Skylight Materials

Roof replacements also can be done using different materials, like asphalt shingles, or metal, so naturally, skylights can be as well! Homeowners often have a choice between a vinyl, metal, or wood frame. Vinyl is going to be the least expensive of the trio, but it won’t be the longest lasting. In extreme cold temperatures, vinyl can crack, and it can warp if the weather gets too hot, so it’s not usually the best option unless you live in a pretty mild climate. 

Metal and wood are much better at surviving temperature changes than vinyl, but also carry with them a heavier price tag, and will increase the overall price of your skylight installation. 

Want to learn more about skylight installations?

Now that you’ve read some more about the prices of skylights, hopefully you’re starting to feel a bit more comfortable in your search! 

If you live in the Raleigh, NC area and want to learn more about how On Tops Roofing conducts skylight installations and replacements, give us a call! We’ve been working on skylights and roofs of all kinds since 1991, so we’ve got the experience to handle whatever comes our way!