Skylight Repair in Overland Park, KS
Water around a skylight usually comes in at the metal kit surrounding the unit. The repair starts at the flashing.
Skylight repair in Overland Park starts at the flashing kit
Where do Overland Park Summit Roofing's skylight calls start? Nearly all of them start at the metal kit around the unit, which means the mark on your ceiling is roof work far more often than it's a failed pane.
The part you can't see from the ground is that metal wrapped around the frame: a bent apron along the bottom edge, step pieces climbing both sides, and a head piece at the top. The kit ages on its own clock, the seal inside the glass ages on another, and warm indoor air against cold glass leaves water that never came from outside at all.
So three different problems arrive under one name, and only two of them are roofing. Whichever one you've got, you'll have it named and written into the estimate you're handed, and that's the same document whether the answer is one length of new metal or a whole new unit.
Apron, side and head flashing go on in that order
The metal goes on low side first, and every piece has to tuck under the one above it. Miss that sequence and water finds a lap it can get behind, so here's the order it all happens in on the roof.
- ·Stripped back to the deck
- The shingles under and beside the unit come up far enough out to reach the old metal without disturbing courses that don't need touching, then apron, sides and head come away together with the old sealant. A kit caulked over several times usually opens up more roof on the way in and breaks up on the way off.
- ·Curb and deck checked
- The wood under the metal is the part nobody sees, and a curb that's stayed wet for a season or two goes soft at the corners. Rot found there comes out before new metal covers it, because a fastener set in soft wood won't hold the kit tight.
- ·Apron along the bottom edge
- The bottom piece goes on first, sitting over the shingle course beneath the skylight so runoff crosses metal instead of finding the seam. It tucks under the side pieces at both bottom corners; a lap running the other way funnels water at your deck.
- ·Side pieces up both edges
- Step-style pieces go in one to a shingle course up each side of the curb, the same detail that goes in at a chimney. Each one has to reach far enough up the curb to stay above the water line, which is why the height of the curb decides the size of the metal.
- ·Head flashing and a diverter
- The top piece tucks under the courses above the unit, and a diverter parts the water heading toward it so the flow travels around the skylight instead of piling against it. A diverter isn't standard on every install; whether you need one comes down to how much roof sits above the unit feeding water onto it.
- ·Shingles woven back
- New courses close the opening back up in sequence, and the finished detail sheds without a bead of sealant doing structural work. Shingles that came off a warm roof usually go back down; ones lifted in cold weather crack at the fold and get swapped for new.
A skylight that leaks again after a repair almost always has one of these pieces out of order. If you've had it sealed twice and it's still coming through, that's worth saying when you ask about roof leak repair.
Questions come before a number on an Overland Park skylight
The metal, the unit and condensation on the glass all put water in the same place, so the answer only comes from looking at the roof and the shaft on one visit. You'll have that answer before anyone quotes you a figure.
You say where the water shows
Where it lands inside the shaft, roughly how old the unit is, and whether it happens in every rain or only in a storm.
Our roofer comes back with questions
The first exchange is questions about what you've seen and when. Nothing is booked off the back of it, and nothing is decided before you have seen a price.
The roof side, then the inside
The metal and the shingles around it from up on the roof, then the shaft and the drywall returns from indoors. The two together tell whether the metal or the unit is the source.
You get the repair-or-replace call
The estimate names which of the two it is, what the work involves and what it'll cost. Whatever warranty comes with the job is our roofer's own, and its term is named there too.
Condensation inside the glass is not an Overland Park roof leak
Some of what you're seeing is a roofing call and some of it belongs to a glass shop. What tells them apart is where the water sits and when it shows up.
- Stains show at the upper corners of the light shaft, which points at the head flashing above the unit: that's a roofing call
- Daylight shows at the curb where the frame meets the deck: that's a roofing call too
- Water beads on the inside face of the pane on a cold morning and is gone by afternoon: that's condensation, and no roof work changes it
- A pane goes permanently fogged or milky once the seal between the glass layers fails: that one belongs to a glass shop
- Shingles lift or go missing just above the head flashing, which lets water in behind the unit
- Drips appear only when rain is coming in sideways, which points at the side pieces instead of the glass
If it only happens when it rains, it's the roof. If it happens on a cold clear morning with no rain at all, it's the window, and no roof repair will change that.
Curb-mount and deck-mount units price differently, and so does a rebuild
If you're pricing this, the first thing that moves the money is which kind of unit you've got. Deck-mount sits low and flashes right into the shingle courses; curb-mount sits on a built-up frame and flashes to that. The frame changes the labor and the parts both, so two skylights the same size are rarely the same money.
The figures here are national gauges and none of them is a Kansas City metro band. If the whole roof is in question at the same time, what a new roof costs in Overland Park carries the numbers for that.
See full replacement costs- Redoing the metal around a single unit is a national planning figure near $600 and up, moving with the size of the skylight and the pitch it sits on
- Curb-mount work runs above deck-mount on the same roof, because the frame has to be checked and sometimes rebuilt before any metal goes back
- Replacing the unit adds the price of the skylight on top of the labor, which is why its age matters more than the leak does
- If the unit still has years left in it, our roofer reflashes it and says so, because a sound skylight in new metal is the cheaper answer
Fogged panes, corner drips and when replacing beats repairing
These four decide whether you're saving the unit or swapping it, and who's on the hook when something up there fails.
Should a skylight be replaced when the roof is replaced?
Can a fogged pane be repaired?
Do skylights void a roof warranty?
Who covers the unit and who covers the install?
Both the skylight and the shingles around it get read
Water at a skylight usually starts in the shingles and metal beside it, so the visit covers the unit and the slope around it together. Send what you can see from inside the shaft and you'll get the answer either way: whether it's the metal or the unit, and what putting it right costs. No sales pitch on replacing the skylight unit.
Prefer to talk? Call now: (913) 210-3890