Dome Light and Plastic Roof lights | Roof Light Construction

In this article, we are going to discuss in detail about the uses and construction of Dome light and Plastic Roof lights.

Basically, roof lights are the elements of the roof that provide lighting into the interiors of the structure for efficient working of people and to keep the place well ventilated.

In today’s architectural terms, we call it skylights.

Roof lights are smaller openings in the roof structure as compared to Dormers.

Dormer construction is usually seen in the sloping roofs but rooflights are generally used when the roof is square, rectangular or circular

Dome light and Plastic Roof lights evolved after the Lantern light construction in which the transparent material used was glass.

Dome Light

• The advantage of the square and rectangular base roof light is that they require straight forward trimming of the roof structure around openings and upstands and flashings to curbs as compared to the more complicated trimming and flushings around the circular base of dome lights.

• One of the commonly used roof-light is the rectangular base dome light, which can be formed in one piece or made up in sections and joined with glazing bars to cover large openings.

• The advantages of these lights are that they are economical to manufacture and fix, are light weight and have adequate strength and stiffen from the curved shape of the light.

• The round base dome light is more expensive to construct than a square base light because of the additional labour involved in trimming a round opening in a roof.

Plastic Roof lights

• Before the introduction of plastic and fibreglass as material for roof lights, the majority of roof lights for flat roofs were constructed as lantern lights or deck lights which were framed in timber or steel and covered with glass.

• Plastic roof lights are either are made as single skin lights or as sealed double skinned lights which improves their resistance to the transfer of heat.

• Polycarbonate is a hard, durable and versatile form of plastic widely used in construction. It can be moulded into rounded shapes, is light and relatively inexpensive.

• Plastic roof lights are bolted or screwed to upstand curbs against wind uplift, formed on the roof to which an upstand skirting of the roof covering is dressed.

• Plastic roof lights gained more importance than that of dome lights because they were easy to construct and replace.

• Plastic Roof lights were preferred over glass because of its resistance to withstand heat as well as extreme cold climate.

• Cold climate makes glass brittle. Harsh climatic conditions can result into crumbling of glass roof lights.