The Benefits of Natural Lighting & Why We Love Skylights

By: Architectural Visions

Have you ever noticed how much more energized and positive you feel after being in natural light versus being stuck under the oppressive artificial lights of an outdated office?

Incorporating natural lighting into your home is one of the best things you can do for your health, your wallet, and the overall aesthetics of your rooms. Windows are mostly relied upon to let the outdoor light in, but you can get even more of these benefits with professional skylight installation.

Key Takeaways:

  • Because of the natural light skylights offer, they conserve energy by illuminating your home naturally
  • The natural light from skylights can make your interior furniture and colors pop
  • Skylights come in a variety of forms including those that open outward for ventilation, or those that operate manually with a pole or chain.

Here are some of the many skylight benefits and how you can create more natural lighting in your own home.

Energy Efficiency Benefits

One of the biggest reasons to invest in natural lighting is to conserve energy and save on your utility bills. With skylight installation, you can enjoy power-saving benefits by illuminating your home with natural light. When you’re not solely relying upon artificial lights in your rooms, skylights can make your home more eco-friendly and sustainable.

Marvin skylights in kitchen allowing natural light into the room

Marvin skylights

Health Benefits of Natural Lighting

There are also numerous health and wellness benefits to adding more natural lighting in your home, such as improved mood, greater energy, and a better overall outlook on life. When your body gets more natural light from the sun, you boost your vitamin D levels to help prevent diseases and maintain strong bones. Natural light from a skylight installation can help you fight off seasonal depression, especially when the cold and dark days of winter set in.

Other researched health benefits of natural lighting are improved sleep at night, greater productivity during the day and vision support due to less eye strain. Installing a skylight is a positive change that you can make in your home to benefit your whole family without spending a fortune or knocking out walls to add more windows.

Skylight Benefits for Design

There are interior design skylight benefits too because skylights are aesthetically pleasing and add beauty to a room. With more natural lighting filtering in, the color of your paint will really pop, your artwork really stands out, and your collections get the attention they deserve.

Your furniture will look more stunning, your accent pieces more unique, and your flooring more detailed when you have more natural light in your room. Therefore, installing a skylight is a great way to update the look and feel of your room without investing in a lot of new pieces or doing a complete overhaul of your current decorations.

Other Perks of Skylight Installation

Having a skylight in your room to allow more natural light flow helps you see around the room better, which is useful for cleaning dark corners and navigating tight spaces without stubbing a toe.

A lesser-known perk of skylight installation is increased ventilation in your home. This is a useful way to let hot air that rises to the ceiling release into the outside world instead of accumulating where you don’t want it. For this benefit, choose a skylight that opens outward at the bottom or that vents through a hinged panel. For ventilation purposes, you can find skylight models that are operated manually with a pole or chain to get the ventilation you need and only when you want it.

More Ways to Let in the Natural Light

In addition to skylights and windows, there are other ways that you can bring more natural lighting into your home as well. One simple strategy is to add more mirrors onto your walls to reflect the natural light coming in and amplify it. You can also replace heavy curtains on your windows with light-colored blinds or translucent curtains that allow more natural light to come inside.

White is the most naturally reflective color to lighten things up in a room, but you can add more character to your space and make it look less sterile without sacrificing this reflection. Try this by decorating with pastel colors on the walls and light-colored rugs on the floors.

At AVI, we recommend Velux Skylights to homeowners looking to add a little more natural lighting to their homes. This brand of skylights is designed to reduce energy costs while also providing more beautiful natural light to your home. We can offer you solar-powered options and a full line of custom blinds to make your home smart, stylish, and well-lit by the power of nature.

Energy-Efficient Skylight Options

Energy efficiency is a key consideration to keep in mind as you are selecting a skylight for your home and arranging for skylight installation. Skylights come with energy performance ratings that you should pay attention to based upon your home’s design and our climate here in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

Energy efficiency is affected by the size of the skylight, how well insulated it is, the quality of its materials and the skylight’s positioning. For example, a south-facing skylight will allow the most sunlight and warmth inside, which can be beneficial in the winter but undesirable in the summer.

Skylights can be glazed with plastic or glass, which feature differences in durability, impact resistance and price. Another skylight feature to consider is shape because you can choose one that is rectangular, oval, circular, tubular, triangular, domed, flat, or curved.

Professional Skylight Installation at AVI Windows & Doors

Skylight installation is not typically a DIY project for homeowners who do not have experience with this type of work. A lot of industry-specific knowledge and expertise goes into getting the optimal skylight installation placement and ensuring that the skylight is well insulated and leak-proof. Skylight installation also comes with serious risks of falling while using ladders and navigating sloped rooftops.

Fortunately, you can trust AVI for your professional skylight installation needs and have peace of mind that we stand by our quality craftsmanship for many years. We have Georgia locations in Alpharetta, Columbus, Atlanta, Macon, and Blue Ridge, as well as a North Carolina location in Franklin and a Tennessee location in the Greater Nashville area to serve you. So, if you’ve been craving more natural light in your home, call us today at 678-297-1111 (Georgia and North Carolina) or 615-712-6498 (Tennessee) for a free estimate.

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