Skylights are excellent additions to your home with many benefits. They add natural light to your interior spaces, promote ventilation by letting in the fresh air, promote solar heating and add an aesthetic value to your home, among other benefits. Typically installed on the roof, skylights come in many different types and are made from different materials. However, finding the right option for your home may not always be straightforward. Therefore, knowing the different types of skylights you are likely to find in the markets often goes a long way in understanding what would work best for your home. Here's an in-depth look into some of the standard types of skylights available.

Fixed Skylights

These are among the most common skylights you will find. As the name implies, these skylights remain sealed and are only used for illumination. They are ideal for attics and stairwell lighting. They can also provide excellent natural views of the sky, but this will, in most cases, depend on the size you choose.

Operable Skylights

Operable skylights provide the best of both worlds when it comes to ventilation and illumination. Popularly known as ventilating or vented skylights, they can be opened or closed as desired. Ventilating skylights are generally manually operated or motorised. You can open and close the manually operated models by hand or use an extension pole if your ceiling is considerably high. On the other hand, motorised ventilating skylights can be operated by a hand-held remote or a wall switch. While they will cost you more than their manually-operated counterparts, they tend to be more convenient, especially for considerably high ceilings and other hard-to-reach places.

Ventilating skylights are the perfect solution for places such as your kitchen and bathroom. They allow for excess moisture in such indoor spaces to escape.

Tubular Skylights

Both fixed and operable skylights can take a significant amount of space on your roof, depending on the size you choose. If you don't have enough space on your roof to install those, go for a tubular skylight instead. The skylight is made up of a light tube that runs from your roof to the room you intend to illuminate. A small dome at the top transmits light through the reflective tube to illuminate the room.

One of the top advantages of tubular skylights is that the tube can be angled to fit between obstructions and illuminate areas that would otherwise be challenging to fit other types of skylights. They are ideal for small spaces such as closets, bathrooms and hallways. On the downside, they don't offer the outdoor views as their counterparts.