Doublewide/Mobile Home Bubble Skylight sweating?

Big Bubba

Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Apr 11, 2007
Messages
746
Hello to everyone on this fine Sunday morning,
I have a question for all of you concerning my bubble type doublewide/mobile home skylight in my master bedroom bathroom. I have noticed that the skylight in my master bedroom bathroom has been sweating between the bottom straight clear window piece that is part of the skylight and underneath the bubble part or I guess they call it the dead air space between the bottom straight clear piece and inside the bubble part and when the sweat/condensation accumulates it drips the small water dripplets down until the smooth clear piece but never drips inside my house or the bathroom. Is this normal and it has been frosting a few times this year in fact this morning I was going to get on my roof to look at the seal but the roof has a heavy coating of frost build up so I didn't want to start my day off sliding off the roof on a Sunday morning, LOL. I have about a month ago checked the seal around the skylight and it looks good and when i first moved into the double wide in July of this year I did use that black tar stop leaker to seal it really good and it or I haven't noticed it leaking when it rains.
 

captmello

Captain
Joined
Jun 30, 2008
Messages
3,826
Re: Doublewide/Mobile Home Bubble Skylight sweating?

sounds like you have, what I would call a suntube. I would do two things. Pull off the cover and dry it out the best you can, and make sure the cover is sealing at the ceiling. You may want to add a layer of weatherstripping. I would also make sure the tube is insulated right up to the roof decking.

Make sure you run the bath fan whenever showering and for a while after. I recommend a timer for bathfans, especially with a weak link like that skylight. That condensation is slow death to your house.
 

Big Bubba

Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Apr 11, 2007
Messages
746
Re: Doublewide/Mobile Home Bubble Skylight sweating?

Yeap, I think one of the reasons for the skylight sweating is we haven't been using or running our vent fan in our bathroom and that may have caused the condensation to be created in the first place, I hope, but now we will be using our vent fan religiously now in the past couple of days.
 

Beefer

Lieutenant Commander
Joined
Aug 4, 2008
Messages
1,737
Re: Doublewide/Mobile Home Bubble Skylight sweating?

Bathroom fans should be run during and for 1/2 hour (min.) after showering/bathing. When I was a home inspector (12years), I read it takes up to 3 hours to exhaust all the waterborne air from a typical shower.

The sweat between the layer of glass/plastic is because there is about an R-.5 insulating value in a skylight like the type you have, so condensation will be created in there. Warm air on one side (house side) and cold air on the other causes the condensation. Not much you'll be able to do about that, other then replace the skylight with a sealed one.
 

kenmyfam

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Aug 10, 2006
Messages
14,385
Re: Doublewide/Mobile Home Bubble Skylight sweating?

+1 on ventilation issue.
 
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