Roofing
Skylights and Your Roof
Skylight Leaks Are Usually Flashing Failures
What's Included
Skylights and Your Roof in The Woodlands, TX
What We Handle
Flashing and sealing around existing skylights during a roof replacement or repair, and diagnosing leaks that turn out to be flashing failures.
What We Do Not Do
We do not install new skylights, cut new roof openings, or replace skylight units. Those are separate trades and we will point you to one.
Diagnosis Before Sealant
A bead of caulk around a skylight is the most common bad repair on a roof. It hides the problem for a season and traps water behind it.
Re-Flashed During Replacement
When a roof is replaced, skylight flashing should be replaced with it. Reusing old flashing under new shingles is where leaks appear two years later.
Curb Height Matters
A skylight set too low on the roof plane, or with too shallow a curb, collects water and debris against it. That is a design problem sealant cannot fix.
Honest About the Boundary
If the unit itself has failed, seals fogged or frame cracked, that is glazing work. We will tell you rather than selling you roofing you do not need.
Where the Line Sits
Worth being clear before anything else. ROYH Build Co does not install new skylights and does not cut new openings in roofs. That is a distinct scope involving structural framing and a glazing product, and it is not something we offer.
What we do handle is the roofing side of skylights you already have: flashing and sealing them properly when we replace or repair the roof around them, and diagnosing leaks that turn out to be flashing failures rather than unit failures. That distinction matters more than it sounds, because the second category is where most skylight complaints actually land.
Why Skylights Leak
A skylight is a hole deliberately cut in the most weather-exposed surface of your house. Everything about keeping it dry depends on the transition between the unit and the roof plane, and that transition is flashing.
Modern skylights come with a flashing kit designed for the specific unit and roof type. Installed correctly, with the roofing material layered over and under it in the right sequence, that assembly is reliable for a long time. Installed as an afterthought, or reused when the roof around it was replaced, it becomes the most predictable leak on the roof.
The failure modes are consistent. Step flashing along the sides that was reused rather than replaced. Head flashing at the top that was not properly layered under the course above it, so water driven uphill by wind gets behind it. A saddle or cricket missing above a wide skylight, so water and debris pile against the upslope side instead of being diverted around it. And sealant used as the primary defence rather than as a secondary detail, which works for a season or two and then does not.
Diagnosing It Properly
A stain near a skylight does not mean the skylight is leaking, which is the single most useful thing to know here.
Water Travels Before It Drops
Water entering anywhere upslope runs along the underside of the decking or down a rafter and drops at the first gap it finds. A skylight opening is a large, obvious gap in the ceiling plane, so it collects water that entered somewhere else entirely. We see this regularly: the skylight gets blamed, gets sealed, and the leak continues because the entry point was ten feet uphill.
Our roof leak repair page covers this properly. The method is the same here: work back from the stain to the actual entry point rather than sealing the nearest suspicious thing.
Condensation Versus Leakage
In this climate a meaningful share of "skylight leaks" are condensation. A skylight is a cold surface in a humid house, and in a poorly ventilated attic it will run with water on the right morning without a single drop coming through the roof. The tell is timing: condensation appears on cold clear mornings rather than during rain. If that is what is happening, the answer is roof ventilation rather than flashing.
The Unit Itself
Sometimes the skylight has genuinely failed: a fogged double-glazed seal, a cracked dome on an older acrylic unit, or a degraded gasket where the sash meets the frame. That is glazing work rather than roofing work. We will tell you when that is the diagnosis, because selling you a re-flash that does not fix your problem helps neither of us.
Skylights During a Roof Replacement
This is the moment that decides how your skylights behave for the next twenty years, and it is worth raising with any contractor you hire.
When a roof is torn off, the skylight flashing comes off with it. The correct approach is to install a new flashing kit appropriate to the unit and the new roofing material, layered into the courses in the proper sequence. The shortcut is to work the new shingles around the existing flashing, which saves an hour and produces a leak in a few years.
It is also the natural moment to replace an aging skylight, since the roof is already open around it. We do not supply or install the units, but if you are planning that, sequencing it with the reroof rather than after it will save you paying to open the roof twice. Coordinating with whoever supplies the unit is straightforward when it is planned in advance.
Ask any estimate you receive whether skylight flashing is included and whether it is new. Our roof replacement cost page covers the other line items that quietly disappear from cheaper bids, and roof replacement covers the work itself.
If Water Is Coming In Now
Move what is underneath and get a container down. Photograph the stain and note the date, particularly if this may become an insurance matter, since documentation made while it is actively leaking is worth considerably more than documentation made after it dries.
Do not go on the roof to look. A wet roof is slick and the area around a leaking skylight may have compromised decking underneath it.
If the roof is open rather than merely leaking, treat it as an emergency roof repair, and emergency roof tarping will keep the weather out until a permanent fix is scheduled. ROYH Build Co is licensed and insured and works across Montgomery County and Harris County from The Woodlands and Magnolia.
Get Your Free Skylights and Your Roof Estimate
Serving The Woodlands, Magnolia, and the greater Houston area, ROYH Build Co will assess your skylights and your roof needs and give you a straightforward recommendation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you install new skylights?
No. We do not install new skylights or cut new roof openings. What we handle is the roofing side: flashing and sealing existing skylights during a roof replacement or repair, and diagnosing leaks that turn out to be flashing rather than unit failures.
My skylight is leaking. Is the skylight the problem?
Often not. Water entering the roof upslope runs along the decking and drops at the first gap it finds, and a skylight opening is a large obvious gap. It collects water that entered elsewhere. The diagnosis has to work back from the stain to the actual entry point rather than sealing the nearest thing.
Water appears around my skylight on cold mornings but not when it rains.
That pattern is condensation rather than a leak. A skylight is a cold surface in a humid house, and in a poorly ventilated attic it will run with water without anything coming through the roof. The fix is ventilation rather than flashing.
Should skylight flashing be replaced when the roof is replaced?
Yes, and it is worth confirming that any estimate includes it. When the old roof comes off the flashing comes with it, and working new shingles around reused flashing is a common shortcut that produces a leak a few years later.
Can you replace the skylight unit itself?
No, that is glazing work. If the diagnosis is a fogged seal, a cracked dome, or a failed gasket, we will tell you so rather than selling roofing that will not fix it. If you are replacing a unit anyway, sequencing it with a reroof avoids paying to open the roof twice.