I love my skylights. My house has ten. If possible leaks are an issue, try the tube type. All my skylites are Velux and haven't had any problems.

I can't imagine my house without them.

We've had 2 skylights in our FR and one in our MBA for 13 years...no moisture problems yet! I don't know what brand they are, but I'm sure they're builder grade. They have "dulled" over the years, but we can still see the moon & stars at night and the birds walking across them during the day! :-)

I had 2 in my house in south Alabama for 18 years and no moisture problems.
However in this house one is in the kitchen and it does make the kitchen 7 degrees hotter and I'm afraid it will fade the cabinets when the sun shines on them everyday. I had to put tint on it.
I bought a tube type for the laundry room which has no natural light, and I will cover the one in the kitchen with stained glass. So consider fading and heat.

Our kitchen has one and it hasn't leaked yet, unless we leave it open!! I think it maybe about 20 years old - at least that's when the last kitchen remodel was. We live in the Pacific Northwest and rain seems like a constant much of the year (is it summer yet??). I love the light is provides. I plan on adding a solar tube to our dark hallway eventually too.

Speaking as a construction defect attorney, I have never seen a skylight that doesn't leak. Sometimes they are subtle leaks where the homeowner only sees a weathered look on the paint and attributes it to too much sunshine/heat, but in my experience they always leak. Always. Eventually. Always.

My kitchen has a reasonable window and a very large skylight and I love it. As far as I know it has never leaked in 14 years and, like Buehl's, I'm sure it's only builder grade. It has faded the cork flooring to match the maple cupboards but I still love it and the cork. DH put a copper pipe in the skylight and it makes a very handsome pot rack.

In our renovation I'm going to get at least two more skylights and more cork. I suspect Bluekitobsessed only gets to see the ones that fail, but even if mine did I'd think it was worth it. We have five in the house overall. I'm in the Pacific North West too and it really does know how to rain here.

Check out the VELUX website. They'll send you a free catalog of all their products; there are many options for skylights.

You can have built-in motorized blinds which are really helpful on a warm day. The skylight itself can be fixed or they can open. They can be motorized or hand operated. You can have a rain sensor so they'll close automatically. You can add a screen. You can get special glass.

As mentioned above by others, there is nothing like natural light. Not to mention seeing the sky, the birds, the clouds, the moon, the stars, etc.

How can skylights go out of style? They bring natural light into a house. It's like saying people don't do windows anymore. For the set-up you're describing, a kitchen without its own windows, and not a huge amount of light coming from the great room, I would find it essential.

We've had our Anderson skylight in our center-hall for about 18 years without any problems; it replaced another skylight which did leak, but that was only because it had not been installed properly, which, of course, is critical.

It brightens up the entire house. In the winter, even covered with snow, it gives the house a glow.

The best part is that when the sun hits it at certain angles in the afternoon, we get wonderful rainbows scattered around on the stairs and downstairs floors.

Love it.

I have been a real estate agent in the Seattle area for over 20 years and I have RARELY seen a skylight that had problems, and I have been to hundreds and hundreds of inspections. They are used quite a lot here, because, as you know, we have a lot of gray days. I have 3 in my home and they are 22 years old, and they look like the day they were installed.

In my opinion, a home just can't have too much light, but I know there are some who don't feel that way. I not only enjoy the natural daylight but I love it on those ocassional nights when the moon is bright and the moonight shines down into the kitchen or I look up and can see the stars. I wouldn't be without them!

I have three skylights in my kitchen and sunroom area, one in the living room, and two in the master bathroom. They have never leaked (drip, drip kind of leak), but there is evidence of the presence of moisture (water staining on the interior wood casing of the skylight). Some of these stains date from before we had a new roof installed--and there are similar stains elsewhere, not associated with the skylights--so the new roof may have fixed the problem.

In a kitchen and bathroom, if your skylight is installed in a sloped ceiling, there is a greater chance of room moisture condensing on the interior of the glass, running down the glass, and then falling into the room, which has happened to us. In this instance the water dripped onto a tiled floor and a polyurethaned butcher-block counter, so there was no damage. You'd have to judge, in your layout, where such condensation might fall.

All that said, I would NEVER give up my skylights. We don't have to use any artificial light until after sunset, and the bright warmth the skylights bring into the house is just priceless.

Don't forget to specify low-E glass in your skylights for greater energy efficiency. Since we had low-E glass installed, the warmth collecting in our kitchen heats up the entire top floor of our house (we live in a temperate area with relatively cold summers, so this is GOOD).

I have 7 in my home. Some are over 20 years old and others are 6 and 1 is 2 years old. They are all perfect and have been from the beginning. I would never trade them. I love the moonlight as it travels across the sky and lights the rooms . Also the shadows and the sound of the rain.

I have a kitchen in the middle of the house and added a skylight in the area between the kitchen and sunroom so that we had natural light. We also added french doors in the sunroom to bring in more light. If you can add "transom" type windows above doorways it is another way to bring in light. If you want to see photos to show what we did you can look on my page link at Finished Kitchen pics. It is a challenge to have a kitchen in the middle of the house but I am glad I do and moving it wasn't an option. Ours is an 1890 home BTW.

I live in the northeast and have 2 Anderson skylights in the upstairs bedroom. Within the past year both seals have broken. (which means a cloudy glass, no leaks... ever.) Both are over 25 years old, so it most likely means there was a 25 year guarantee! I took a visit to the windows and doors website where they highly recommended Velux, which I am replacing as we speak.

I don't get too much natural sunlight in the kitchen in the back of the house. Since I live in a 2 story house a skylight wasn't an option.

You shouldn't have a problem with leaks if installed correctly. My father told me the sunroof in a car always leaks too and I've never had a problem there either.

My new kitchen will face north with only one large window so I'm putting in 2 solar tubes for natural light. I think (??) solar tubes can be added later if you find out you don't have enough light in your kitchen. I have 2 skylights in my great room and I love the natural light but I do feel the cold air rush down from it in winter.

Shelly_K - Our greatroom/kitchen/breakfast area look almost exactly like yours! Only we have a long hallway that runs behind the kitchen (between garage), with a pantry in the corner.

Back on topic though, our builder strongly encouraged us NOT to put them in...also my parents have quite a few and they are constantly leaking when there is snow/ice buildup. Having said that, I have some in my existing 20-year old home and have only had 1 leak. Go with what YOU want!

We just replaced two skylights in our family room and one in our kid's bathroom w/the VELUX brand and they are wonderful. They vent open, have rain sensors and a built in shade. The ones we had prior were original to our house which was built in 1986. We have been here since 1999 and none of the 3 ever leaked at all. We only replaced these b/c we were replacing the roof, as well as the whole exterior "envelope" of the house. We are now into week 3 of our kitchen re-model and we will be back in next week!

In '89 we put a Velux skylite in our kitchen. It has never leaked. However, since then, during our cold Chicago winters, our kitchen has been so cold at times, that we must eat in the dining room or wear jackets. We have added insulation everywhere, in the can lites, walls, ceiling. It never happened before the skylite. We also have a skylite, orig 1960 when house was built, in the warmest room in our house, a windowless interior bathroom. I know this is a lonely position, but natural light is overrated to me. If I had to choose, I'd rather have wall space and enough can lites to do surgery! Generally, I've never had enough time to watch birds/critters/stars. Altho I do love the scenery/nature/water at our Lake Mich beach house. On a dune! Walls of sliders facing the water!

Even those with low E glass add a significant burden to your home's HVAC system. They're hot in summer and cold in winter. In mild climates, this may not be too burdensome, but in either a hot weather climate or a cold weather climate, the burden can be quite a bit and you may need to reengineer the HVAC system to account for it.

I also have never seen a skylight that didn't leak eventually. They also transmit noise quite readily. I think you'll find most pros will mirror my experiences.

Wow, thanks for all the input and experience.

I guess after doing some research, I am leaning more toward the tubular skylights -- mostly for cost and I am the most interested in getting more natural light in and less interested in looking up at the sky. And I am guessing that tubular skylights will be less of a burden on HVAC and heating/cooling issues.

Experience with tubulars? From what I've read, even just one smaller tubular can add quite a bit of natural light and they seem to be easy to install (and less costly).

You might consider a dormer or clerestory copula. Our architect suggested the clerestory copula to bring light into the center of the house. It could not have worked better. The standard windows do not leak 20 years on. Here is an exterior view; I don't have any inside that are online.

I wanted to share my Solatube experience (tubular skylight). The main bathroom in our 30 year old home is windowless. It always felt wrong, wrong, wrong to go into a room in the middle of the day and have it be dark. Closet, sure, room, no.

We had a Solatube installed and that bathroom is now the brightest room in the house during the day! I would say there is practically no heat or cold transmitted into the bathroom via the Solatube. I absolutely love it!!! The porthole look took a bit of getting used to (for me), but it has made such a positive improvement that I would definitely do it again and recommend it to anyone. Ours is only a few years old so I can't speak to possible leaks.

Typically I get a call from a homeowner who has one concern (windows and settlement/subsidence are the two hot button issues). My experts go through the house with a fine tooth comb and they find things that the homeowner might not know about, which might include skylights.

Our home is 6 years old and we have a big sky-light in the kitchen and two smaller ones in two of the bathrooms...and I love them~~ No need to ever turn on a light in the day time and love to see the moon light at night~~~

Right after we moved in, one of them did leak a bit, but we have shake shingles and the roofer didn't get it sealed...came and fixed it and it didn't leak again.

My husband is an architect/contractor and he says we are having them in the kitchen of our next home...and the plan is very similar to yours....kitchen in the middle of the house, open to the great room.

If in doubt then go with the SolaTube lights!

I had them in our last home in Texas - wind, hail, blizzards, whatever we never had a problem.

Maybe your architecs concerns are area related... area meaning that the people quality is so bad that he want recommend them.

Get what you want but from experience I say tubular...