When Emily Dilbeck and her husband bought their home in Woodland, California, one of the features they liked best was the skylights in the living room and kitchen. But the skylights were older translucent white acrylic models that weren’t energy efficient, didn’t open and blocked the sky view. Once the rainy season hit, the family realized that one of the skylights leaked.
Dilbeck is always on the prowl for home design ideas, so when Shavonda Gardner, an interior design influencer she follows on Instagram, posted Stories about the VELUX Daylight Renovation Sweepstakes, she entered.
“She had posted so much about the skylights in her bathroom, I thought that would be nice to have in our house because they open and bring in light,” Dilbeck said. “On a whim I entered. I never do anything like that.”
Because Dilbeck already had skylights in her home, but they were old and leaking, VELUX gave her the option to replace the existing skylights with new models that come with a No Leak guarantee and have added functionality. The new skylights are VELUX No Leak Solar Powered “Fresh Air” models that not only provide a sky view (the old skylights had translucent white acrylic glazing), but they also open to create air flow in her home.
And her new skylights have energy-efficient, dual-paned LoE3 glass and solar powered room darkening blinds, so Dilbeck can control the light when she needs to.
Pictured below: The kitchen with its new skylight.
“Before we had light, but it wasn’t bright light because of the white plexiglass that was on them,” she said. “We love that we can see the sky now.
Pictured below: The old skylight had translucent white acrylic glazing that was energy inefficient and blocked the view of the sky.
Pictured below: The new VELUX No Leak Solar Powered "Fresh Air" skylight has clear, energy efficient glass and can open to bring in fresh air.
“But the thing we’re really looking forward to is having [remote-controlled] blinds on the skylights,” she added. “Before we had to cover the old skylights and manually zip tie the covers down on the roof, otherwise it would get too hot. So in the summertime it was just dark in the house.”
Now the family will be able to close the blinds during the hottest and sunniest of summer days and enjoy extra natural light during short winter days. While the new skylights are energy efficient without the blinds, adding blinds boosts the skylights’ energy performance by up to 45%.
And it gives the family an eye on the sky.
“Now we can see the weather and my kids really love opening the blinds,” Dilbeck added.
Pictured below: Dilbeck celebrated her new skylights with an Instagram story just after the skylight replacement was complete.
Dilbeck, who is an artist specializing in abstract acrylic paintings, said the brighter natural light from the new skylights inspired her to move forward on a long-awaited living room renovation project: repainting the walls, which had been drab green.
“Often I put a painting of mine on the wall in the living room and photograph it,” she said. “The plan is to repaint it – one wall dark blue and the rest will be white. It’s really nice to have that natural lighting because I won’t have to bring in lights to light it when I photograph my work.”
Do you have old skylights in your home? Contact a skylight installer to learn about the benefits of replacing them.
