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There are a variety of options for what type of material you can have used in your skylight each with its strengths and weaknesses, the most common materials are glass, acrylic, and polycarbonate. It’s important to assess your needs and preferences when deciding what materials to use in the skylight to ensure you are happy with the performance and look of your skylight.
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Glass is the more popular of the options for skylights for a few factors primarily the visual clarity of the glass giving a clear undistorted view through it, glass also tends to be more durable than the plastic alternatives in different ways and glass doesn’t discolour over time so tends to look better for longer. There are two types of glass used for skylights being tempered or laminated glass since these are safety glass that must be used in skylights. Tempered glass is much harder than normal glass due to the tempering process used and this results in the glass shattering into pebble-like pieces with no sharp edges if the glass breaks. Laminated glass, on the other hand, is made of two sheets of glass with a thin layer of plastic pressed between them, this means if the glass breaks the plastic holds the pieces together preventing glass shards from being scattered around. The main durability benefits are the high resistance to wear damage such as scratches and has relatively high impact resistance.
Acrylic is the most well know of the transparent plastics used in skylights and windows. Acrylic is a transparent plastic that is the most glass-like option having the clarity and transparency like that of glass sheets, but it is significantly lighter than glass. Being a plastic acrylic is easier to work with and shaped allowing larger skylights as well dome-style skylights, the acrylic used in a skylight can also be coated to tint the acrylic to the desired colour or can be coated to help defuse the sunlight passing through the skylight. Acrylic is also far more resistant to impacts, but while acrylic is more impact resistant than glass, glass tends to be more wear-resistant while acrylic is more susceptible to scratching.
Polycarbonate is another material option for skylights, as a transparent plastic polycarbonate has the same benefit as acrylic being far lighter than glass and less expensive. Polycarbonate is also flexible being able to be curved, so is a great choice for dome skylights, and it is also optically clear though it does have lower visual clarity than glass or acrylic not by much. The main benefits that polycarbonate has over the other options is its durability and resilience, polycarbonate itself will keep its appearance and shape for years without discolouring or warping. Polycarbonate is virtually shatterproof and won’t fracture, bend, or break even in the toughest environments, being able to withstand temperatures for sub-zero to extreme heat with no negative effects while also blocking 99% of UV and other harmful rays from the sun.
After looking at the benefits of each type of material used in skylights it shows how important to decide what option best fits your tastes, climate and weather since you won’t want to choose polycarbonate if you living in an area with very low chances of hail, with stable temperatures and you want the clearest view through the skylight as possible but if your home is surrounded in tall trees that drop sticks, seeds and/or nuts on your roof and the temperatures wildly change throughout the year then polycarbonate would be best suited. So, it is important to assess what conditions the skylight will have to compete with and pick the material that will serve you the best in those conditions.
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