The Industry Standard for Skylight Warranties

When comparing which skylight solutions are most viable, the warranties consumers come across play a massive role in their decision-making process.

After all, before committing to any large purchases, ensuring the quality of a product and its reliability is an essential step. Otherwise buyers greatly increase their risk of taking unexpected losses, whether by ending up with products that don’t meet their needs and standards, by accidentally engaging with scammers that pose as a legitimate business, or through any other number of unwanted and unforeseen issues they’re not legally protected against.

That’s why good skylight providers offer warranties for their products. But each provider’s warranty includes different time ranges, coverage conditions, and limitations unique to their product. Meaning, to find an above-and-beyond skylight warranty in today’s climate, its important buyers first understand what the industry standard for skylight warranties currently are.

The Importance of an Excellent Warranty

Conducting background research and checking testimonials can be a valuable and encouraging way to help evaluate a provider’s trustworthiness. But at the end of the day, little demonstrates the confidence a business has in their products—and the performance level customers can expect—like a generous warranty.

When customers are shown that a company believes in their product enough to stand behind its performance, and that they are willing to take financial losses on behalf of the customer should it fail, they have little reason to question whether it works or not. The warranty simply wouldn’t be sustainable for the business to offer otherwise.

Even if there is remaining customer skepticism about whether a product can deliver on its promises, or just hesitance about receiving damaged goods and purchases getting lost during delivery, with a solid warranty backing their orders, the lack of customer risk becomes a major encouragement. Not to mention an effective repeat business incentive and customer loyalty builder.

The Modern Standard for Skylight Warranties

For these purposes, a warranty has three main components to keep in mind—how long it lasts, what protections it offers, and the conditions customers must comply with to keep the warranty from becoming void.

Length of Coverage

A decade ago, the idea of a 10-year warranty in the Skylight industry was unheard of. No matter the design or model, due to natural weathering and degradation of materials used in frame construction, leakage and other signs of skylight wear was only a matter of time.

But with the advancements seen in synthetic materials and the technologies that produce them, this is no longer the case. For instance, leak-resistant designs in the frames for Skylights are now commonly covered by providers in 10-year intervals, with sealed glass panes often protected for longer periods of up to 20-years.

Of course, as manufacturing methods continue to improve, the timespan of these warranties will only continue to increase.

Protections and Compensations

Customers shouldn’t ever have to take on costs for mistakes made on the provider’s side, and with a good skylight warranty, they never will.

Under the current industry standard, whenever skylight parts and products arrive with functional defects or develop them during normal use, customers are typically entitled to free-delivery replacements either to their homes, their nearest retailer location, or are simply fully refunded instead.

However, it should be noted that it’s also the standard for skylight warranties to exclude compensations for accidental damage caused by general misuse, faulty building design, natural disasters, and anything else that isn’t the fault of the provider after delivery and installation.

Customer Obligations

While 10-year warranties on skylights might make it seem like a customer can rest after installation, in reality, most skylight warranties require regular maintenance on the customer’s end to stay in effect.

For instance, it’s common for providers to ask customers to clean and paint their skylight frames with lacquer every few years, and after enough time passes, seek out previously authorized maintenance services to keep skylights functioning properly.

Otherwise those skylight warranties will expire conditionally, long before the advertised length runs its course.

The Emerging Improvements in Skylight Warranties

It’s Still Worth Pointing Out…

The skylight warranties described above may be the modern standard, but recent innovations in skylight material and construction have already prompted longer-lasting models (and even greater warranty offerings) to hit the market.

Using our own Vtech skylights as an example, by combining reaction injection molding with polyurethane frames under single-piece skylights, the resulting strength and durability lets us offer decades of reliable skylight performance at no upkeep requirements. There’s no color fading, bending, denting, rusting, or leaking—all at relatively lower costs and zero maintenance on the customer’s end.

Because of this guaranteed, long-lasting use, the full warranties we offer with our skylights last an unprecedented 20-years and are transferable. But what we’re offering now is only the beginning of what’s to come throughout the industry.