A VELUX Skylight Woven Into a Jamestown Roof of CertainTeed Landmark and Modified-Bitumen

This Jamestown home is really two roofs in one — steep, sunlit slopes in CertainTeed Landmark Georgetown Gray and a low-slope section that needed a true membrane rather than shingles — with a VELUX skylight set where the daylight would do the most good. Bringing those systems together watertight, and integrating the glass as part of the roof rather than a hole cut into it, is exactly the kind of mixed-assembly work that makes a project like this succeed or leak. Pinnacle roofs go on fast — often as a one-day roof replacement — and flexible financing keeps a project like this within reach, with plans as low as 0% interest for 18 months.

A genuine VELUX skylight was integrated into a new roof that pairs CertainTeed Landmark shingles on the pitched planes with a self-adhered modified-bitumen membrane on the low-slope section. This project is in Jamestown, Rhode Island, finished in CertainTeed Landmark — Georgetown Gray.

Scope of Work

The pitched slopes were stripped to the deck and rebuilt as a full system: CertainTeed WinterGuard ice-and-water shield along the eaves and up every valley, DiamondDeck synthetic underlayment across the field, new drip edge and starter courses, and Landmark shingles in Georgetown Gray coursed cleanly up each slope. The low-slope section is where roofs like this fail, so it was treated as its own waterproofing problem: a self-adhered SA modified-bitumen membrane laid in overlapping plies over a sound substrate, seamed and rolled to bond into a single continuous sheet that sheds standing water a shingle roof never could. Where the two systems meet, the crew ran layered metal flashing and lapped the membrane and underlayment so water is always carried from the low roof out onto the shingles below it, never behind them. The VELUX unit was set into the pitched field as the shingles went up — its engineered flashing kit woven course by course into the surrounding Landmark, with ice-and-water membrane lapped up the skylight curb so the barrier is continuous from the deck to the glass.

What We Installed (And Why)

Two products carry this roof, and each was chosen for the job it does. CertainTeed Landmark is the dimensional shingle that made architectural roofing the American standard: a dual-layer, fiberglass-based shingle with a Class A fire rating, StreakFighter algae-resistant granules, and enough depth and shadow line to read as a quality roof from the street. Its Georgetown Gray color is a warm, mid-tone gray blend that suits a New England home without going stark, and installed to Pinnacle’s specification the field qualifies for CertainTeed’s strongest warranty coverage. On the low-slope section, shingles would be the wrong answer — below a certain pitch, water moves too slowly for a shingle’s overlap to shed it — so a self-adhered modified-bitumen membrane does the waterproofing instead: multiple reinforced asphalt plies bonded into one monolithic sheet with no exposed fasteners, engineered to handle the ponding and slow drainage of a near-flat roof. The VELUX skylight is the piece homeowners remember, and the reason it stays dry is the same reason a valley stays dry: VELUX sells its units as No Leak Skylights because each ships with a flashing kit engineered to the exact roof covering, and it is that factory flashing — woven into the shingles as the roof is built — that seals the unit, not a bead of caulk. The glass itself is a sealed, low-E insulated unit that pours daylight into the room while cutting summer heat gain and winter heat loss.

Project Photo Gallery

Landmark Georgetown Gray shingles finished on the pitched slopes

The VELUX skylight flashed into the surrounding shingles

The low-slope modified-bitumen section that a shingle roof could not cover

Good To Know: How do you keep a skylight watertight where a roof changes pitch?

By treating the skylight and the pitch change as flashing problems, not caulking problems. A skylight stays dry because its engineered metal flashing kit is woven into the roof covering course by course, so every layer laps over the one below and water is carried across and past the curb the same way it is carried through a valley. A pitch change — where steep shingled slopes meet a low-slope membrane — is handled the same way: the membrane is lapped up under the shingle system and joined with layered metal, so water always steps down from the low roof onto the shingles and never gets a path underneath. The failures happen when a skylight is cut into a finished roof later and sealed with caulk, or when two roof systems are simply butted together and the seam is filled. Sealant always fails before the roof does. Building the glass, the shingles, and the membrane together, once, in the right order, is what makes a mixed roof like this one leak-proof.

Why This Approach Works

A roof that combines shingles, a low-slope membrane, and skylight glass has more transitions than a plain roof, and every transition is a potential leak. The advantage of one crew responsible for all of them is that nothing is handed off at a seam: the same team that sets the membrane laps it into the same underlayment the shingles sit on and flashes the skylight into that same continuous system, so the whole roof drains as one.

Why Pinnacle

Skylight and mixed-assembly work rewards a contractor certified at the top of the manufacturer’s program. As a VELUX 5-Star Skylight Specialist, Pinnacle qualifies our customers for CertainTeed’s full SureStart™ PLUS extended warranty — coverage most contractors cannot offer. We’ve served Rhode Island since 2012, hold a 5.0-star Google rating across 100+ reviews and an A+ BBB rating — see our full credentials.

Jamestown, Rhode Island

Jamestown sits on Conanicut Island in the middle of Narragansett Bay, a town of water views, salt air, and steady wind off open water on nearly every side. Homes here take weather from all directions, which puts a premium on roofs that are flashed and detailed rather than merely covered — and on skylights that turn the island’s abundant light into the best feature of a room without becoming its biggest leak risk. A roof that brings shingles, membrane, and VELUX glass together into one watertight system is built for exactly the conditions Jamestown delivers. Explore our work across Jamestown roofing services.