The 475 team recently traveled to Hanover, NH joining up with LAMILUX partners to assist in the installation the LAMILUX PR-60 pyramid skylight in a retrofit of a historic home. This fully customized roof light will transform the interior kitchen space using daylight. Commitment to performance is standard for LAMILUX, and is reflected in all stages of this unit. This installation is a great educational tool to learn about the importance of each layer as it comes together, from the frame profile to the drainage and flashing.
Daylight Without Compromise
LAMILUX was founded over 100 years ago in Rehau, Germany, and has become the premier manufacturer of high-performance roof daylighting systems, particularly for large Passive House buildings with glass roof installations. These rooflight systems confer the extensive benefits of daylighting while guaranteeing air- and water-tightness, resistance to condensation and elimination of thermal bridges – all while accommodating an extensive range of building projects because of their versatility.
The PR-60 is a fully-customizable roof glazing system that can accommodate roof pitches ranging from 2 to 90 degrees, and can take a wide variety of shapes and forms. The Hanover house features of a 5 ¾ ft by 13 ft hipped roof light with a 30 degree inclination. Like all PR-60 systems, it consists of thermally broken aluminum frames with triple-pane, argon-filled glass, offering a U-value of 0.12btu/hr/sf and a solar heat gain coefficient of about 30%. Each pane is unique: the inner layer is laminated glass, the middle layer float glass, and the exterior layer tempered safety glass. The entire unit is rated for fall through protection, and can be walked on for maintenance purposes. But all of this protection doesn’t diminish the unit’s capacity to flood the space with brilliant daylight: the visual transmittance of the entire assembly still reaches about 60%.
Let’s Break It Down
Everything is meticulously detailed, starting from the frame profile itself complete through to the drainage and flashing details.
Unique Gasket: The Secret To Performance
No other curtain wall system has a drainage system that can compare. LAMILUX’s gaskets act as a thermal break and drainage plane in one. In this case, they were pre installed in the factory but they can also be installed on site. It has two built-in drainage layer channels (scroll through to the photo of rubber overshooting the corner). These channels sit outside of the airtight layer, thus can be drained directly to the exterior. This can be confusing because these gaskets are located within the assembly. The mechanics of this is that the glass sits on the gasket and is pressure fitted to create an airtight seal. The continuous airtight layer runs from the glass to the gasket, then from the aluminum profile, and finally around to the adjacent glass gasket connection- see sketch above.