Technical Advice | Glazing Technologies
How Can Ridgelights Be Used in Design?
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An Overview of Ridgelights
Ridgelights are steadily making their way into more and more projects that desire a great amount of light into their residential or commercial project. In this article, we will explore what ridgelights are, the key benefits of ridgelights and how structural ridgelights are used in design.
What is a Ridgelight?
Ridgelights are a sleek glazing structure used in many modern residential and commercial buildings. A ridgelight is an angled glazing system which will be installed over an apex or ridge of a pitched roof. The majority of ridgelights can be installed in the range of 5 degrees to 70 degrees. This allows for great creative freedom and can open a multitude of opportunities to bring a considerable amount of light into a home.
A very common reason for ridgelights to be installed is to gain a good deal of light into a home or commercial building when the sun is directly above a building for a considerable amount of the day.
Ridgelights are often confused with what the industry referrers to as “longlights”. Longlights are simply ridgelights but with no angle, just a straight and flat glazing system which are common in many buildings.
Key Benefits of Ridgelights
Maximise Daylight and Thermal Comfort
Ridgelights are specifically designed to optimise the amount of natural light entering a building, enhancing the overall atmosphere and providing a more comfortable environment for occupants.
Add Spaciousness
By allowing more light into the area below, Ridgelights create an illusion of increased space and openness, which can be particularly beneficial in smaller rooms or areas with limited natural light.
Customisation and Versatility
Ridgelights can be tailored to suit a wide range of architectural styles and requirements, with options for frameless designs, self-supporting structures, and a variety of RAL colors.
Structural Glazing Ridgelights
Ridgelight systems are not only used for decoration or additional windows, but used structurally. A great deal of these systems often replace a large fraction of a pitched roof, thus causes a great effect that creates an illusion that the roof is missing or transparent. The glazing can be used to join buildings together, for example joining an extension to the main household, this is called a “glazed link”.
Ridgelights are highly customisable and can be made bespoke for any project. These systems can be frameless to create a seamless effect between structure and glazing, they can also be self-supporting which means that no extra supports need to be integrated (this would potentially ruin the design of a space). They can also be specified in any RAL colour.
For any glazing installation, Contact the IQ Glass team today.
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