The Tiny house Blog

Flat Roof Access Skylight as a Tiny House Interior Design

By
Jason Francis
Designed and built over 100 custom tiny homes, lived on a sailboat for 9 months, and loves to live life to the fullest with his wife and their 4 kids.
Updated on:
August 22, 2024
tiny house the mountain xl

View The Mountain XL by Comak Tiny Homes

 

Letting the natural light inside your tiny house project demands careful and thoughtful design. Fortunately, special building components like the flat roof access skylight help you establish a bright focal point in compact living spaces.  

As a skylight roof equipment, the DU6 model forces beyond its weight using detailed engineering, fully utilizing diffuse daylight even under challenging conditions. In this blog article, you'll discover more of this access door product's impressive features and benefits. But first, let's enumerate the importance of optimizing the space in tiny houses and the advantages you will enjoy when you bring the sunlight inside.

4 Reasons Why Natural Light and Space Optimization are Critical in Tiny Homes

Bringing natural light and maximizing room spaces are essential, particularly in small houses, as they greatly aid in making the unit appear more spacious and cozy. Here are four other reasons why these factors are essential to have in confined living spaces: 

1. Improves Mental Health and Mood 

Humans getting ample sunlight daily helps regulate body clocks and serotonin levels. It also combats depression and boosts your focus and energy. Hence, tiny houses need wall windows or skylight roof installation to flood their interiors with light all day. 

2. Enhances Interior Aesthetics 

Placing strategic lighting through windows or skylights lures the eye around the little area, creating an illusion of a larger space. 

3. Maximized Living Functions 

It's best to consider incorporating dual-purpose furniture like bed-nook desks and overlay kitchen countertops inside your small home projects, as it extends the house's functionality in limited square feet. In addition, you can also think of putting shelving platforms, specifically in unutilized wall corners, to form extra storage space above eye level. 

4. Future-Proofs Resale Value 

If you plan to sell tiny homes, you can guarantee your potential buyers will pay more for a compact living unit with customized lighting and a space-saving form that meets function. Contractors and other construction professionals who demonstrate an artful solution serve natural light, and a cleverly multifunctional floor plan sets the clients up for resale profit happiness. 

 

tiny house bedroom skylight at night
Photo by Christopher Farrugia on Unsplash

7 Important Benefits of Flat Roof Access Skylight 

Now that you're familiar with the perks you'll gain once you prioritize natural light and space optimization in tiny houses, it's time to meet the components to help you easily achieve those critical factors. 

Fakro is a well-known brand that offers top-notch access doors and skylight roof products, and one of its most sought-after models is the flat roof access skylight. Listed below are the seven essential advantages it brings to your small home project: 

  • Floods Interiors with Natural Daylight: The skylight's large triple-pane glazing panels welcome plenty of diffuse sun rays, which makes interior lighting unnecessary, particularly during daytime hours. The abundance of natural light inside your client's confined living room can greatly improve their mood and wellness. 
  • Doubles as Emergency Exit: The DRF flat roof access provides a special opening mechanism containing patented hinges and gas springs, enabling you to manually open the skylight and safely keep an 80-degree open position. This unique feature empowers you to alternatively use the door as an emergency fire escape route, satisfying required building codes. 
  • Weather-Resistant Durability: Skylight's fully insulated metal construction, multi-chamber PVC frame, and double chamber Low-E, UV filtering glass, which consists of insulating argon gas, withstands intense UV rays, impacts, and all other weather extremes year-round. It significantly helps prevent the flat roof access door from turning yellow or degrading over time, like some acrylic skylights. 
  • Easy Installation: Depending on your installation capability, you can attach the skylight component by yourself or seek a specialist's help. Nonetheless, this flat roof skylight's installation process is pretty simple. You'll lift the frame and glazing components into pre-cut roof openings, then bolt them together. It demands no soldering, further decking, or on-site assembly just to secure a snug fit. 
  • Sleek Aesthetic Integration: The flat skylight's seamless and unobtrusive design allows you to flawlessly incorporate it into any roofline for a clean, stylish integration that avoids smooth surface interruption or plain appearance. 
  • Energy Efficient: This skylight product's triple-pane glazed panels massively lessen heat transfer, enhancing insulation and lowering your tiny house client's energy bills for heating and cooling systems all year round. 
  • Long-Service Warranty: Along with their package purchase, your small home clients can ensure a long warranty service that will protect the component for years and save them from expensive repair fees. The skylight product and glazing include a 10-year warranty, while the gas springs have two years.  

tiny house modern mountain home loft bedroom skylight
View Modern Mountain Home by Tiny Heirloom

9 Critical Factors You Must Check When Attaching Flat Roof Skylight 

Since you now know the product features, let's proceed with the crucial aspects you must note before, during, or after installing the flat roof access door. Here are the nine factors you should keep an eye on: 

  1. Proper Framing: The skylight roof framing in your tiny house project should match the cut-out opening in the roof. Remember to reinforce framing details as specified in the manufacturer's instructions. 
  1. Correct Flashing: Skylights are susceptible to leaks. It's the main reason why appropriate flashing is necessary on each corner. You have to make sure to tape and seal all penetrations thoroughly to prevent water, moisture, or other outside elements from infiltrating your small homework's interiors. 
  1. Sufficient Insulation: Your flat roof door purchase already integrates adequate insulation, thanks to its multi-chamber PVC frame and UV filtering glass, it heavily comprises insulating argon gas. The only thing you should do is to maintain or improve this roof insulation in the skylight opening to continue enjoying its energy-efficient benefits. It's also crucial to promptly fill gaps to avoid leakage that can disrupt the insulation performance inside the small vicinity. 
  1. Intended Usage: You should contemplate how to utilize the space beneath and how you'll enhance the lighting and ventilation from your desired skylight's location and size. 
  1. Future Maintenance: It's best to plan the installation of your tiny home project's skylight with easy access or removal in mind. Future inspections and repairs are inevitable, so you should anticipate them and place your flat roof doors most comfortably so your technicians and maintenance personnel can access them and get the job done. 
  1. Roof Structure: Double-check your small house project's roof structure above the skylight, including trusses and decking, and make sure it can strongly support static and dynamic loads from wind, snow, and foot traffic on the roof. 
  1. Climate Factors: You should consider the climate situations in your client's locations. Their skylights require an overhang, additional gutters, and sealing to contain ice dams and water penetration problems, especially in colder and snowy zones. 
  1. Compliance Certification: It's vital to visit and check local building codes for certification requirements regarding skylight integrity, emergency egress, and energy efficiency to obtain permits and inspections successfully. 
  1. Budgeting Accurately: You must estimate your tiny home roofing project's overall costs, including the roof reinforcement, flashing, installation materials, and labor, to install the skylight following the budget from the start.

Maximize the Functionality and Aesthetics of Your Tiny Home with Access Skylights 

Incorporating a flat roof access skylight provides numerous key benefits to contractors, designers, and tiny homeowners. It floods interiors with natural daylight to bolster well-being while saving energy usage and consumption. However, you should take note of the various considerations, such as structure support, flashing, insulation, and future access, to guarantee the project's code compliance and longevity. Ultimately, the skylight elevates lighting design and living functions within any compact living space.

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