Skylight Installation & Repair in Titusville, FL

A skylight is one of the first places a Florida roof starts to leak. Nine times out of ten the glass or the dome is fine. What gives out is the flashing and sealant around the frame. They take a beating from UV, heat, and hard summer rain until water finally finds a way past them.

See a brown ring on the ceiling under a skylight, or drips that only show up in a hard rain? That is worth looking at now, not in six months. A small flashing leak turns into wet drywall, stained paint, and rotted decking a lot faster than folks expect, and the humidity out here on the Space Coast only speeds it up.

Align Roofing Service handles skylight work for homes and businesses across Titusville and Brevard County. We repair leaking skylights, reflash and reseal them, swap out units that are past saving, and put in new skylights when you want more daylight. We get up on the roof, find where the water is actually getting in, and tell you what it takes to fix it.

Repair or Replace: How to Decide

Most people call us about a skylight because of a water stain on the ceiling. First thing we figure out is whether the unit itself failed or the roof around it did. Out here, it is almost always the roof around it. Flashing and the roofing that ties into the curb take the worst of the UV and heat, and that is where water sneaks in long before the glass or the dome ever gives out.

If the skylight is under about ten years old and the glass, dome, and seals still look sound, reflashing and resealing the perimeter is usually the right move. We pull back the surrounding shingles or tile, put in new head and side flashing, and set fresh underlayment so water sheds around the unit instead of pooling against it. Done right, that fixes the leak for years and costs a fraction of a full swap.

Replacement makes more sense when the seal between the panes has failed and you see fog or trapped moisture inside the glass. Same when the acrylic dome has yellowed or cracked from years of Florida sun, or the frame itself is corroded. And when a unit is old enough that finding matching parts turns into a treasure hunt, replacing it is just easier. If we are already doing a roof replacement or a big roof repair in that area, swapping the skylight at the same time is smart. You pay for roof access and flashing labor once instead of twice.

One more honest point. If a skylight has leaked over and over and the decking around it feels soft, the fix is bigger than the glass. We check the wood under and around the curb before we quote anything, because a leak that ran for a season can rot sheathing you cannot see from inside the house.

Why Titusville Skylights Fail Sooner

Roofs age faster here than they do up north, and skylights sit right in the path of everything that wears a roof down.

The sun does the most damage. Central Florida UV bakes acrylic domes until they craze and yellow, and it breaks down the rubber gaskets and butyl seals that keep water out. A dome that would go twenty years in a mild climate can start failing in ten or twelve here. Salt air off the Indian River Lagoon adds corrosion to any aluminum or steel flashing that is not the right alloy, and cheap fasteners rust out and back away from the deck.

Then there is storm season. June through November, wind-driven rain gets shoved sideways under flashing that would stay bone dry in a normal downpour. A skylight that only leaks during a hard blow almost always has a flashing or seal problem, not a glass problem. Heavy summer rain also finds any low spot around a curb where water sits instead of running off. If a storm cracks a dome or drives water in, that crosses over into storm damage roof repair, and we document it the same way we would any other storm loss.

Ventilation plays into it too. A hot, humid attic drives condensation onto the underside of the glass, and people mistake that drip for a leak. Sometimes the real answer is roof ventilation repair and we never touch the skylight at all. We check for that before we sell you a repair you do not need.

How the Work Is Done Right

A skylight is only as dry as its flashing. The glass and frame are the easy part. The details around them are where the job is won or lost.

On a curb-mounted unit, the flashing goes on in layers. Base flashing at the bottom, step flashing up the sides woven into each course of shingles, and a head flashing at the top that tucks under the roofing above so water runs over it and never behind it. On a deck-mounted skylight, the manufacturer's flashing kit has to go in the right sequence with the underlayment, or it looks fine and still leaks. We do not lean on a bead of sealant to do the flashing's job. Caulk is a backup, not the waterproofing.

The material under all of it matters on the Space Coast. We use corrosion-resistant flashing and fasteners because plain steel does not last near salt air. Underlayment or a peel-and-stick membrane around the curb gives you a second water barrier, so if wind ever drives rain past the top layer, it still has nowhere to go. On a tile roof the flashing detail changes again, and it ties into how tile roofing sheds water around penetrations. Same story on a metal roofing panel, where the pan and rib layout decide how the curb gets flashed.

For a new install, cutting the opening is the point of no return. It has to land between rafters or trusses, framed properly so you are not weakening the structure, then sealed and flashed before the roofing goes back on. On asphalt shingle roofing that is routine work. On a flat roofing system it needs a proper curb built up so the unit sits above standing water.

What Drives Cost and Timeline

A straightforward reseal or reflash on an accessible asphalt roof is a short job, often a few hours. The number climbs with whatever makes the work harder or the parts more specialized.

Roof type is a big one. Reworking a skylight on tile or metal takes more time and care than on shingle, because tiles have to come off and go back without cracking and metal panels have to be reflashed clean. Pitch and height matter too. A steep or two-story roof is slower and needs more setup than a low single-story slope.

The unit itself moves the number. A basic fixed skylight runs less than a venting or solar-powered one, and impact-rated glass built for Florida wind zones costs more than standard glazing, though it is what you want on a coastal home. If the light shaft inside the house needs drywall and paint after the work, that adds interior finishing time.

Then there is what we find once we open things up. Rotted decking, framing that was never done right, old flashing buried under two roof layers, all of it adds labor. We would rather find it and tell you than paper over it. Whatever the scope, you get a free inspection and a free written estimate first, and financing is available if a skylight repair turns into something larger. If you are weighing a full roof installation with new skylights in it, we price the whole thing up front so nothing surprises you halfway through.

Common Mistakes to Watch For

The most common bad repair is a thick layer of roofing tar or caulk smeared over a leaking skylight. It might hold for a season, but it traps water, hides the real problem, and makes the eventual proper fix messier. If someone tarred your skylight, the leak is still coming from the flashing underneath.

Another one is reusing old flashing on a reroof. When the roof around a skylight gets replaced, the flashing should be new. Bending tired old metal back into place is how a brand-new roof leaks at the one spot nobody touched.

We also see skylights set flat on a low-slope roof with no curb, sitting in the path of every puddle. And we see the wrong sealant used, the kind that dries hard, cracks in the Florida heat, and lets go inside a year.

If you are seeing a stain, do not wait for it to spread. A quick roof inspection tells you whether it is the skylight, the flashing, or something else entirely. We work throughout Titusville and out to Merritt Island and the rest of Brevard. Call for a free inspection and a written estimate, and we will tell you straight whether it needs a reseal or a replacement.