Skylight with heat-and moisture-releasing grooves

Abstract

A skylight system including a light-admitting cap adapted to fit over a grooved flashing is disclosed. The grooves are constructed in such a way that they will dissipate heat and remove condensation, but they will not admit the passage of unwanted objects, such as dust or bugs, and they are placed in the flashing rather than the cap so as to allow the cap's form to be less obtrusive than would otherwise be possible. The flashing is formed of a single piece of material, which may be aluminum, to reduce the likelihood of warping, or of cracks forming therein. The system further includes an extension tube communicating between the structure's exterior and a desired location inside the structure, and an inner trim ring with a filter and a diffuser adapted to moderate the intensity of the admitted light.

Description

[0001] 1. Technical Field[0002] This invention generally relates to skylights, and more specifically relates to a skylight adapted to release condensation.[0003] 2. Background Art[0004] Prior to the development and wide-spread adoption of electric lighting, skylights were popular in architectural design because of their ability to naturally illuminate indoor spaces that were not suitable for or accessible to a standard window. Even now, when electric lighting is almost universally available, natural light is often preferred. Thus, though the motivation for installing skylights may have changed, they have nevertheless retained much of their popularity.[0005] If skylights are to conduct light from the exterior of a structure to its interior there must be an opening in that structure that communicates between the interior and the exterior. Moisture that penetrates the skylight thus has a relatively unobstructed path along this opening to the interior of the structure, where it can caus...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007] Therefore, there existed a need to provide a skylight system capable of reducing or eliminating condensation while avoiding the shortcomings of the prior art. According to an embodiment of the present invention, a skylight system comprises a light-admitting cap adapted to fit over a flashing having indents therein. These indents are described herein as grooves, but may also take other forms such as circular or otherwise symmetrical indentations. As used herein, grooves means elongate channels. The grooves are constructed to limit or prevent the passage of unwanted objects, such as bugs and dust, yet allow moisture to pass therethrough. The grooves may be placed in the flashing rather than the cap so as to allow the cap's form to be less obtrusive than would otherwise be possible, though it will be understood that the grooves may in some embodiments, where a lower profile is a lesser concern, be located in the cap, or anywhere within a contact zone formed by the union of the cap and the flashing. The flashing may be formed of a single piece of material, such as aluminum or similar material, to reduce the likelihood of warping, or of cracks forming therein.

[0008] The skylight system may further have an extension tube and an inner trim ring with filter and diffuser. The extension tube integrates with the skylight's flashing and is placed within an opening in the structure extending from roof to ceiling. The inner trim ring attaches to the bottom of the extension tube where the tube penetrates the ceiling, and the filter and diffuser broadcast the natural light thus admitted into the structure's interior space. The skylight herein described is thus more attractive, cleaner, less permeable to unwanted foreign matter, and more easily and less expensively manufactured than earlier skylight assemblies.

Problems solved by technology

Moisture that penetrates the skylight thus has a relatively unobstructed path along this opening to the interior of the structure, where it can cause obvious problems.

However, condensation, which is the deposition of a liquid or a solid on a surface that is at a different, generally lower, temperature than the surrounding gas, remains problematic because its presence inside the skylight does not depend upon leakage.

In the context of a skylight this means that the difference in the temperature between the interior and the exterior of the skylight may cause condensation on the interior surface of the skylight.

If this condensation is not removed, the moisture may reduce the clarity of the skylight or even damage the structure in which the skylight resides.

For several reasons, this construction is problematic.

Drainage holes tend to admit the entry into the skylight of dust and bugs, which then must be removed in a time-consuming process.

Furthermore, locating these drainage holes on the light-admitting cap is expensive, difficult, and requires a high profile skylight that detracts from the appearance of the roof line and of the entire structure.

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