If your home has skylights — especially older bubble-style ones or units that have started fogging, leaking, or just looking tired — the single best time to deal with them is when your roof is already coming off.
Not next year. Not as a separate project. Right now, while we’re up there.
That’s not a sales pitch. It’s a logistics reality. Replacing skylights during a re-roof means one crew, one project, one set of flashing work, and one aligned warranty timeline. Doing it later means tearing into a brand-new roof to retrofit something you could have handled the first time around.
We install one skylight brand: VELUX. Here’s why.
What’s Actually Wrong With Your Old Skylights
Most of the skylights we pull off New Hampshire roofs fall into two categories.
The first is the old acrylic bubble — the kind that was everywhere in the 1980s and 1990s. These yellow over time, crack in extreme cold, and offer almost no insulation value. They were fine for the era. That era is over.
The second is a glass skylight from 10–20 years ago that was decent when installed but has lost its seal. You’ll notice condensation between the panes, drafts in winter, or water stains on the ceiling trim that don’t quite look like a leak but aren’t nothing either.
In both cases, the skylight isn’t doing what a skylight should do: bring in natural light without giving up energy efficiency, weather protection, or comfort.
Why VELUX — And Why It’s the Only Brand We Install
We’ve been doing metal roofing across New Hampshire long enough to have tried multiple skylight manufacturers. We settled on VELUX because their products solve the problems we actually see on job sites, not just the ones that look good in a brochure.
They’re engineered as a system, not a collection of parts. A VELUX Skylight System includes the skylight unit, precision flashing designed for your specific roof type, and integrated shades — all built to work together. That matters because most skylight failures we see aren’t the glass or the frame. They’re the flashing. When the skylight and flashing come from the same manufacturer and are designed as a matched set, the weak point disappears.
The energy numbers are real. Adding a VELUX shade to a skylight system improves the U-value by up to 46%, which means measurably less heat loss in a New Hampshire winter and less solar heat gain in summer. For a state where your heating bill runs from October through April, that’s not a spec-sheet detail — it’s money.
They back it up. VELUX offers an industry-leading warranty on their products, and as a Certified Installer, our installation workmanship is covered for 10 years by VELUX directly. That’s not our warranty — it’s theirs, covering defects in workmanship or materials related to installation. That distinction matters when you’re evaluating contractors.
Three VELUX Products We Recommend for New Hampshire Homes
Venting Skylight Systems
These open and close (solar-powered, so no wiring needed) to let fresh air in. In a state where you might keep your house sealed up for five or six months straight, the ability to vent through the roof on a spring day is something homeowners tell us they didn’t know they wanted until they had it. They come with a solar-powered shade and remote control.
Best for: kitchens, bathrooms, master bedrooms, any room where you want both light and airflow.
Fixed Skylight Systems
A clean, low-profile unit that doesn’t open — just brings in daylight. These have a minimalist frame design that sits flush against the roofline, and they come in a wide range of sizes. Fixed systems are the most cost-effective way to dramatically change how a room feels.
Best for: hallways, living rooms, lofted ceilings, any space where light is the priority and ventilation isn’t needed.
Sun Tunnel Skylights
These are the sleeper pick. A Sun Tunnel fits in the ceiling like a recessed light and channels sunlight from the roof through a reflective tube. No major framing work, no structural changes — just a quick install while we’re already on the roof. They’re ideal for interior rooms with no exterior wall access.
Best for: bathrooms without windows, walk-in closets, interior hallways, laundry rooms.
Why Doing It During Your Re-Roof Saves You Money
This isn’t complicated math. If your roof is already off, we’re already up there, and the flashing work is already part of the project scope. Adding or replacing skylights at that point is incremental labor and material, not a standalone project with its own mobilization, tear-off, and re-flashing.
More importantly, it aligns your warranties. Your metal roof warranty and your skylight warranty start on the same date, which means you’re not in a situation five years from now where one component is covered and the one next to it isn’t.
And if you’re going from a 25-year-old bubble skylight to a modern VELUX system with Low-E glass, solar venting, and integrated shades, the difference isn’t incremental. It’s a different experience in your home — more light, better comfort, lower energy bills, and no more worrying about leaks every time it rains.
What “VELUX Certified Installer” Actually Means
Any roofer can buy VELUX products from a supply house and install them. Certification is different. It means we’ve completed VELUX’s training program, we install to their specifications, and our work is backed by VELUX’s own 10-year installation warranty — not just ours.
For you, that means if something goes wrong with the installation years from now, VELUX stands behind it directly. It’s one of the few manufacturer-backed installation guarantees in the skylight industry, and it’s the reason we went through the certification process.
Ready to Talk About Skylights for Your Roof Project?
If you’re planning a metal roof replacement or new metal roof installation anywhere in New Hampshire, skylights should be part of that conversation — even if you’ve never had them before. A Sun Tunnel in your interior bathroom or a venting skylight in your kitchen can change how your home feels every single day.
Contact FBI Contracting for a free consultation. We’ll walk through your options, show you what fits your roof and your budget, and give you a quote that includes everything — roof, skylights, flashing, shades — in one project.
FBI Contracting, LLC is a VELUX Certified Installer serving homeowners across New Hampshire, including Concord, Tilton, Meredith, Laconia, Manchester, Nashua, and the Lakes Region. Call (603) 286-4414.
