Skylights

When most people think of skylights, they think of their roof. While skylights reside on the roof, they are completely separate from the roof and any warranties associated with it. Changing or adding skylights to your commercial or industrial building is one of the many services offered by Central Roofing. Properly installing and waterproofing skylights is critical, as these areas are often prone to leaks. Central Roofing's innovative installation techniques ensure a watertight seal for the duration of your roofing warranty and beyond.

Using the sun's natural light provides the documented benefit of substantial energy savings. Skylighting (also known as daylighting) can reduce lighting costs and cooling costs. Based on skylighting studies, savings can range from approximately 50 cents per square foot to 75 cents per square foot (based on the building type, location, operation and local cost of energy).

Skylighting is now encouraged or required by California's Title 24 energy code, LEED-NC v.2.2, Northeast Collaborative for High Performance Schools, and ASHRAE Advanced Energy Design Guide for Small Office Buildings. At the time of writing, ASHRAE 90.1-2010 and 189.1 standards are expected to include requirements for daylighting controls.

Skylighting is not only recognized as a best practice in energy codes and industry standards but it offers a number of benefits:

Improved building aesthetics
Sustainable energy reducing energy consumption and operating costs, while improving the impact on our planet
Improved occupant comfort, productivity, attendance, satisfaction, and performance

Using natural light from the sun uses only natural resources, helping to preserve the environment and pays big dividends to building occupants. The result is a compelling, efficient lighting solution that also protects the environment. By consuming less energy, skylit buildings reduce fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions associated with global warming and climate change.

Case Study:

In an effort to see if in fact cooling energy could be saved using daylighting design, the Energy Center of Wisconsin conducted an experiment at the Energy Resource Station in Ankeny, Iowa, just north of Des Moines. Associated with the Iowa Energy Center, this highly instrumented facility is specifically designed for multiple, full-scale tests and demonstrations involving commercial building lighting and HVAC systems.

This research was conducted under a U.S. DOE grant to NASEO (National Association of State Energy Offices) in cooperation with ASERTTI (Association of State Energy Research and Technology Transfer Institutions).

The research measured lighting and HVAC energy use in two sets of rooms. Different window configurations, glazing, lighting systems and automatic lighting controls were tested against a set of control rooms. The HVAC system remained the same for all tests. Three rounds of testing to capture seasonal variation were conducted for the project: