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On our new house we plan a sunroom with a shed roof. We want to use metal roofing, if we can afford it. The roof pitch is necessarily low to accomodate an egress window on the upper floor. Can skylights be used?
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Alana, when we added a sunroom to a house about a year ago with a low pitch metal roof we had a sheet metal shop fabricate a metal box about 6 inches tall with a flashing flange about 12 inches wide all the way around. The top of the box was wide enough to fasten the skylight to. This produced a very water tight situation instead of putting the light on the metal roof itself.
*Alana,You betcha.Some skylights come with flashings made for metal roofs. Talk with you builder or roofer.Not a problem.Ed. Williams
*Alana - Assuming that you mean Velux Skylights or equivalent, the wisdom of using them on a low pitch roof also depends on (1) How low the pitch is and (2) Whether or not they are operable.There are kits that raise the high end of the skylight on its own curb, but they are butt-ugly and only for areas where the skylights won't be visible from the ground (my opinion).Otherwise my opinion is that at less than 4:12 pitch you are really taking a risk with operable skylights; at 3-to-3.5:12 with fixed skylights - read the Velux literature carefully and play it conservatively. In this situation I have once or twice let the roof keep it's pitch and flatten out only at the window to make the window sill - that's an aesthetic decision.Other issues:(1) Do the head flashing really well. This seems to be the weak link. Ice & Water Shield, etc. too(2) If there is a skylight well, insulate and vapor barrier to the extreme - all the warm moist air goes up the well and gets you into trouble.I've seen even Velux leak right through the glass - but generally speaking they stand behind their product.Jeff
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On our new house we plan a sunroom with a shed roof. We want to use metal roofing, if we can afford it. The roof pitch is necessarily low to accomodate an egress window on the upper floor. Can skylights be used?