6 things I wish we knew about kitchen skylights

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Looking for some kitchen inspiration, sorry inspo? Are you planning a kitchen renovation?

Here are 6 things we didn't know about kitchen skylights, light wells, or Velux before our new kitchen renovation. Things we wish we knew before the rebuild started here in the UK. We love how the planning worked out, but hope this gives you some open plan kitchen style ideas for your build with a before and after.

6 things I wish we knew about kitchen skylights



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

Hello welcome back to the channel 

This is the Dad Delivers Vlog where we try new things to make your family happy and... I said "yer" family 

how disrespectful! It’s to make our family happy but maybe... maybe these things will help you too 

today we're going up into the sky and the reason I've got all the lights off is so that you can see them 

these are the skylights 

they... they're new, except they're not new - we've had them for a year but we've never cleaned them 

so I'm going to clean the skylights today and also go through six things that I didn't know about skylights 

I've not had them before so they might help you if you're planning a new kitchen 

what do you call them? 

is it skylights or light Wells or Velux? 

these aren't Velux and I’ll probably touch upon that later on because maybe we should have had some kind of opening thing 

but we went for ones which don't open 

but before... I don't know if I can find some footage of... this is how the kitchen... this is how this whole area looked before we had the wall knocked down 

there's like this Berlin wall in the middle that broke up this space and it just made everything really small, really dank and it was really dark as well 

we had the idea that “what if we were to knock holes in the ceiling and have these light Wells” and they have really helped 

we've not got any lights on at the moment and they... they just let in so much light 

but there were six things we weren't expecting 

let me take you up in them 

Oh, that’s better - we’ve got the lights on now 

Kitchen Skylight fact number one is the insects love them 

and it's really obvious now but when we were planning it, I didn't realize it would be quite an attraction 

it's like a little uh Alton Towers or Disney World Paris for... for the insect population 

this seems really obvious now but obviously when an insect flies in like a fly or wasp, they try to get out and so they head for the light 

and the best light - especially on a sunny day - is up here and over time they really collect and gather 

so you either have to try to go in there and fish them out or you just leave them there to... well I guess you know pass out from trying to bang their head on... on the poor glass there 

If we had Velux Windows you know the ones where you kind of open a latch and you can actually open the thing - you could I guess let them out but it would create its own problems 

also I'm not sure we could have had one this big 

there are no regrets from having the sealed light well style window but it does... it does tend to attract a lot of insects 

which brings us on to Sky light fact number two which is the spiders love the insects trapped by the skylights 

I don't know if you can see, they're just these dark bits? 

I think these are from where spiders have spawned and they absolutely fill the sky well with webs 

if I can stand on the table - there’s a spider here - I don't want to wreck his dinner but there are a lot of webs in here and it it just looks a bit Addams family after a while, so we have to kind of keep them in check 

I don't want to do any harm to the spiders - they’re doing a fantastic job in keeping the insects down - but sometimes the webs do take over and that's what I've got to sort out now 

I got this device on Amazon: it's an Oxo good grips extendable microfiber duster 

I'll leave a link below but it's extendable so you can undo the whole of this and you can press the button to adjust the angle of the feather duster 

it's like the ultimate feather duster look at that! 

but it also has a removable duster cover - it’s like a popper and then you can take that off and wash it 

this is my first time using this as it'll probably show but the idea is that we'll be able to clean the worst of it 

just get the spiders webs off hopefully without harming them 

wow there's a big one just in the gaps 

if I push the camera into the edge you might be able to see a big spider - where is he? 

Oh he’s up there isn't he... he's just hiding under there 

so they're safe, they're safe 

I'm just gonna wreck their one year's work 

just so we get some light through! 

hey look did you see that! 

He hid! he ran in and hid 

That's good because I don't want to... I don't want to harm them 

I just don't want to look at their webs 

Unexpected kitchen Skylight fact number three is that they collect mould 

I wasn't expecting this and this seems to come up a lot on the my channel - my videos lately 

we have this constant battle against finding mould in ever new places around the house and unfortunately the skylights are no exception because they they just attract mould 

I think it's pretty obvious that if we're cooking, the one place the moisture is going to go is straight up to the skylights 

we do have an extractor fan in the corner so that helps - we’re putting that on more now - but these sky lights or light Wells do tend to collect mould 

let's push the camera up so you can see it 

I can't tell if it's uh spawn points for the spiders or little bits of mould growing from the... the moisture that collects up here 

what I tend to use for mould and I've put it on the channel on the last couple of videos but I tend to use this - the Milton sterilizing fluid 

you might be using that as a parent if you've got little kids to sterilize their dum-dums their dodos and their Bot Bots but now we're buying it to get rid of just huge chunks of mould 

now I think you're supposed to dilute this even just a little bit, but I've been using it neat and I've got to say that wherever I've put it on the walls the mould has gone instantly 

the black marks disappear within hours and they... they don't come back 

so here I am applying it liberally with a microfiber cloth - just trying to get into the corners to get rid of those mould spots 

it's just one more bit left 

do the splits on the sofa like Leroy... Channel my inner Leroy from Fame 

well it's a good workout if nothing else 

and over on the other Skylight this is me standing on the very delicate, very precious quartz countertop there 

hoping that my delicate frame can be taken by our kitchenware and I'm just... I'm just standing very gingerly trying to balance myself and not uh and not break or crack the top there because that would be very very bad news 

kitchen skylight or light well fact number four is that we need to send the kids out there to to clean the glass 

it's a bit like in Victorian times when you would send the children up the chimney to clean the chimney 

we live in more enlightened times so we send ours up to clean the filthy skylights 

they haven't got that dirty but there's a lot of moss and foliage and just crud that falls off the roof and that segues us to fact number five: 

that the lights - we weren't expecting - but we put these LED strips in underneath which I think looked really nice 

I was hoping they'd be coloured and would flash and give us disco lights 

we just got the plain ones but they're good they're really good and they put like this cornice around it to hide the the light strips 

The only downside with it is that it really illuminates the back of the house 

It's almost like it projects direct light onto our kids windows and it keeps them awake 

Well, they claim that it keeps them awake - but it is pretty bright up there if you've got these... these light Wells on, so we're sending light the other way out into space 

And then there's facts number six 

the final fact which is that the kids... because they're up there they can see when you are hiding drinks and chocolates in the kitchen 

they can just look down the light well and see exactly what's going on 

So if you are likely to want to hide stuff from your kids when they're not looking they can totally see everything - so you might want to bear that fact in mind 

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