Skylights

[suemarkp]

The top floor of my house has 3 attics, and one is not accessible. I'd like to be able to get up there to rewire some things and run some return air ducts. I thought a good way to make a nice access hole would be to put a rectangular hole in the ceiling and have that go to a skylight. But this attic has little headroom, and I need to get the rectangle opening as near the peak as possible so one of the side walls can fold down into the attic space to give me access. I can put the actual skylight roof opening about a foot below the roof peak. Is this OK, or is there a certain distance from the roof peak that a skylight must be located.

[Wgoodrich]

There is no limit how close to the top you are other than properly installing abiility without hitting the peak causing a leak.

I am not picturing the idea of a skylight making an access to an attic. These skylights are hard to keep sealed. To readily romove a skylight is to invite a leak. YOu could make the skylight and then an access through the sidewall of the skylight chase.

Just an idea

Wg

[suemarkp]

I think you have it pictured. The skylight will not move or open, but the chase or "light tunnel" will have one wall that is hinged and can flop down into the attic. This hinged wall will be the tallest one and is closest to the roof peak. Its still going to be tight though, as I think there will only be about 24 to 30 inches of headroom up there.

[mdshunk]

Not to horn in on your thread Mark, but I just wanted to make an observation. It always puzzles me why some otherwise modern houses have inaccessable attic areas. I did some work in a ranch home not too long ago that had a huge attic area, only without any access at all. I had to unzip a few pieces of vinyl siding off the gable end and cut a hole in the plywood to get in to do some work. That added about 3 hours to the job, between the demolition and the replacement when I was done. "Dumb, dumb, dumb.", was all I could think of at the time.