One of the artifacts of our nifty old building was an additional set of 'service chimenys' in the old kitchens... Just an 18" square column that served the ovens and the 'trash burners'(the alternative heating at the turn of the previous century- waste not, want not).
They appear to be right in the middle of rooms that we were hoping not to be burning trash in so we have to take them out! This is a brick-by-brick process that starts on the roof and creates a serious hole that goes right through the building in two places!
That's the Sky!
That's our basement... well our crawl space... well, calling it a crawl space is a bit grandiose... it may be really a slither space...So Victoria and I came up with the crazy idea that we had a hole anyway, why not put in a skylight (or two)? There is, of course, no standard skylight size that fits this situation but that hardly even slowed us down...
We created a wood light-chase and painted it with three coats of heavy duty white oil based primer which will grab any sunlight and send it into the house... Then, up on the roof, we secure it to the old chimeny penetrations...
and make sure that the banding has alternating, overlapping ends so that water has to really, really work to get into the house...
Now we put the skylight on top, using lots of goop and goo that promises complete weather-proofness, and it looks like this:
Getting it centered is the only option in this moment... once that goop sets up there's no going back!
Looks good from here! (Of course, I also went down, off the roof, and checked from the inside as well- had to...) Then, we attach the skylight for the rest of its natural life...
and, just to be sure, we put even more goop over the screws, just because we can!
So now, even on an overcast day, we have a flood of the sky coming into our home...
