VELUX Skylights on an EPDM Flat Roof in Tiverton

Putting a skylight into a flat rubber roof is a different job than setting one into a shingled slope, and it is one of the places a skylight most often leaks when it is done wrong. This Tiverton project got it right: VELUX skylights integrated into an EPDM membrane roof with the curbs and flashing built so the glass sits above the water, not in its path. 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 Tiverton home had VELUX skylights installed into an EPDM rubber membrane roof, with the skylight curbs and flashing detailed so the units sit above the low-slope surface and shed water cleanly onto the membrane. This project is in Tiverton, Rhode Island using VELUX skylights.

Scope of Work

The work centered on the hardest part of a flat-roof skylight: the connection between the glass unit and the membrane around it. The EPDM roof was installed or prepared as a continuous single-ply rubber sheet, sealed at its seams and detailed up the walls and around penetrations. Each VELUX skylight was set on a curb that raises the unit above the low-slope surface — essential on a flat roof, where water drains slowly and can pond — and the EPDM membrane was lapped and flashed up the sides of that curb so water is carried onto the rubber and away, never behind the unit. The skylight’s own engineered flashing then finished the assembly at the glass. On a flat roof the curb height and the membrane-to-curb detail are everything, and building them correctly is what keeps a flat-roof skylight dry for the long run.

What We Installed (And Why)

This project pairs two materials built for low-slope roofs. EPDM is a single-ply rubber membrane, the proven covering for flat and low-slope sections, valued for a long service life and strong resistance to UV and Rhode Island’s freeze-thaw swings; it waterproofs the surface as one continuous, seam-sealed sheet where shingles could never shed water. The skylights are VELUX, sold as No Leak Skylights because their dryness comes from engineered flashing rather than sealant. On a flat EPDM roof, the critical addition is the curb: a raised frame that lifts the skylight above the plane of the membrane so the glass sits over any water that drains slowly across the low slope, rather than in a spot where water can pond against it. The EPDM is then run up and flashed to that curb, tying the membrane and the skylight into one waterproof detail. Get the curb height and the flashing lap right and a flat-roof skylight is every bit as dry as one on a steep roof; get them wrong and the low-slope surface will find the weakness. Doing this correctly is exactly the kind of detail that separates a skylight that brings years of daylight from one that brings a bucket under the ceiling.

Project Photo Gallery

VELUX skylights integrated into the Tiverton EPDM roof

A curb-mounted skylight flashed into the rubber membrane

The finished EPDM roof with skylights in Tiverton

Good To Know: Can you put a skylight in a flat or rubber roof?

Yes — and it is common — but it has to be built differently than a skylight on a steep, shingled roof, and that difference is where flat-roof skylights succeed or fail. On a sloped roof, gravity and the overlapping shingles carry water past a skylight quickly. On a flat or low-slope rubber roof, water drains slowly and can sit on the surface, so a skylight set flush into the membrane is asking to leak. The solution is a curb: a raised frame, built to the right height, that lifts the skylight above the plane of the roof so the glass sits over the water rather than in it. The membrane — EPDM rubber, in this Tiverton project — is then lapped up the sides of that curb and flashed so water is carried onto the rubber and off the roof, never behind the unit. VELUX’s engineered flashing finishes the connection at the glass. Done this way, a flat-roof skylight is completely reliable. The mistakes happen when a skylight is dropped into a flat roof without an adequate curb or without properly integrating the membrane — which is why this is a detail worth handing to a contractor who installs both the membrane and the skylight.

Why This Approach Works

A skylight on a flat roof stays dry by sitting on a properly built curb that raises it above the slow-draining membrane, with the EPDM lapped and flashed up that curb. Building the curb and the membrane-to-curb detail correctly is what makes a flat-roof skylight as reliable as one on a steep slope.

Why Pinnacle

Flat-roof skylight work rewards a contractor who installs the membrane and the skylight as one system, so the curb and flashing are built as a single waterproof detail. Pinnacle installs as a VELUX 5-Star Skylight Specialist, to the manufacturer’s specification. 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.

Tiverton, Rhode Island

Tiverton sits on the eastern shore of the Sakonnet River, a town of farmland, waterfront homes, and a mix of traditional and modern houses — including the flat and low-slope roof sections that modern and added-on homes so often have. Those low-slope surfaces are where skylights are trickiest and where EPDM earns its keep. Integrating VELUX skylights into a rubber roof the right way suits the kind of homes Tiverton has and the daylight its owners want. Explore our work across Tiverton roofing services.