- I am on a roof in New Jersey.
And it's got a bunch of skylights,
besides other work we do here the transition
over the parapet wall
we also have skylights to fix,
and the problem with the skylight is,
people like to put tar over this metal
that holds this glass down.
They like to put the tar here
and the tar cracks, dries up and cracks.
Look at it, it doesn't even stick to the glass.
It never sticks to the glass
it never makes a good transition there, you see?
It's cracked.
So how do you fix this?
You fix a skylight, you need to remove the tar,
or just push.
(tool scraping)
But that's not easy, let me show you
so there, look, it's coming off see that?
So first of all, preparation.
Remove the tar, remove the caulking,
and then, I get,
all right.
So that's the first thing.
So I'm gonna remove all the tar
like that, see that?
(tool scraping)
Look at it
that's it.
A little bit of a job, but you have to do it.
And then I'll show you how I repair it.
I remove the tar,
and then I remove the caulking
and whatever they put on here, all right?
So you wanna restore an old skylight like this,
you really have to get at it.
Removing the tar is more important.
So you do all of it like this.
I'll show you then how I make the repair
but that's, first thing you have to remove all this tar.
And then we'll get to the repair.
- [Woman] This is another skylight
you'll, need to repair.
Can you see (indistinct) how they did it?
So, this is not good
all the water go in, and this is,
they have a lot of problems,
but we need to fix this, see how much the (indistinct)?
But it's still not, that is a lot.
(murmuring)
Mr.Flat Doctor
and he's working.
You're doing a good job, sweetheart
a very good job,
Okay.
- All right, so if you wanna restore an old skylight
like this, we're not really restoring it,
we are making it leakproof
this is on most commercial buildings
even in Brooklyn, a lot of apartments have these skylights.
And you remove all the tar that everybody has put on there
because tar doesn't stick to glass,
and it dries up, so I suggest you remove these tabs.
Where's my flat bar, you remove these,
I'm gonna explain to you how this works,
so you understand why I would like to remove this,
without breaking the glass now.
By gently,
there you go.
So you remove this, you can see,
this was just a protection for the putty
they used putty in the old days,
let me show you
you see this white?
It's plumber's putty.
And plumber's putty dries out, like that.
Now, if you wanna really restore it the old-fashioned way,
you can replace it, the glass, you take the glass off,
and you can replace that putty.
Putty doesn't last, and I don't have time for that.
I have a different method that I want to show you
I'm gonna do this one, and then I'm gonna do this one,
let me show you.
Lift the tabs up
and then I try to get this up, oi there comes the glass.
That's why these things are there
to hold the glass down, okay?
Now I'm gonna show you what I do, all right.
So, I clean this out.
(tool scraping)
Okay, I take some lacquer finish,
if you really want a nice job.
I'm gonna just do the section
so you can see what I mean by restoring it,
but I'm not restoring, I'm just sealing it
wanna do a good job in sealing it,
so I don't have to come back and fix the leaks.
All right, so here we go.
All right, that's it.
So I've got the tar off,
that's the main goal.
And then you got your glass cleaned
if you have one of these skylights,
that's what you can do
you can even replace the broken glass
by taking the measurement,
and then you can put this frame back if you want to
I don't.
But I'm gonna show you what I do.
So here's what I do,
make sure,
so it sits in this glass, and I'm gonna do this.
I'm gonna use Super Silicone Sealer.
Where's my tape?
Now, if you wanna do a nice job, you could do it this way.
Let me do a nice job for you, so you understand what I mean
okay, tape this off just like that.
Tape it off, like that,
Another one there we tape it off,
Like that.
So that's just so we can get a nice look to it.
So I'm gonna do a section to show you.
I use Super Silicone Seal, and,
open this can
see what I have here
I'm gonna mix this stuff up a little bit.
Got gummed up a little bit.
It gets hard inside if you leave it,
it doesn't have a long shelf life
so mix it up a little bit.
All right, here we go
here's what I suggest,
put this on there and that is it, it will seal the skylight.
The glass to the frame
see the metal frame, there's a metal frame there,
and it will attach the glass to the metal frame,
and you'll never have to leak again.
So, let me show you
I will remove any goop there, you see that?
That's how you do it.
And there's some putty left in there
I don't scrape everything out.
I'm just trying to fill this up.
It's filling up nice now,
and that's how you can restore your skylight
without having to spend a lot of money.
It's like cleaning out, taking those metal strips off,
that protects the putty,
okay, that's it.
There you go.
All right, then I do the edge here, like so.
I should have done this right there
and bring this up a little bit there.
So, I'm gonna remove the tape from the very edge
because I wanna fill this with the turbo, I mean,
with Super Silicone Seal, right there, see there?
There, right there.
That's what you wanna do,
fill that up and make a nice edge, like that
And then you go and you do the same on this thing, okay?
(unintelligible murmuring)
And that's it.
You wait for this to cure in a little bit,
just like a half an hour, so it will not run
you wipe that off.
I mean wipe the glass,
wipe the glass a little bit clean,
aye, I'm getting, the more I wipe, the more I get on it
okay, here we go.
And you wait about a half an hour so the silicone will set,
and then you remove the tape.
That's how you do it, all right?
I'm gonna do the whole skylight
I'll show you what it looks like when I'm done.
But that's the principle, how you do it,
let me do the whole skylight.
So you can see the plumber's putty.
Look at the plumber's putty.
You can see the plumber's putty there it's dried out,
and when the wind blows or the water flows,
it will flow underneath that metal strip,
and then the plumber's putty is not holding at all
and that's why people put tar and caulking and everything.
I think the best is to remove that metal strip, like I did.
That metal that protected the plumber's putty,
or they call it glazing, in the old days
they glazed the windows.
And I just remove it,
and that way I can make a proper seal there, okay?
All the prep is done.
Now, the easy part, the paint.
So, very important to prep, very important
if you don't prep, we're gonna go over tar,
and think it's gonna be nice.
We cannot do that, we gotta--
Okay, let's go.
Look at that, just wanna make it look nice.
There you go, look at this.
Now, the wind always blows when I wanna do this, always.
I don't know why.
Oh I wanna show you, I found some holes, rust holes,
where the water would sit there,
there's a lot of rust holes, you see that?
There's a hole there
this is a good thing, what I did,
look at the hole there I just covered it.
This will go into the hole, but yeah,
the best thing I did was to take that metal off, and,
put silicone in here
this will do the job.
You never have to do this again.
If it's done right,
It's not tar, it's not a quick tar fix, this is done right,
and that's it.
So this is a little rusty.
I'm just painting the top,
and that's it.
A nice, renewed skylight,
this is the best.
- [Woman] baby, can you clean it here?
- Yes, I'm coming.
The skylight looks much better than it was.
It will not leak again.
Look at that, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Now, this is a commercial building
it's not even they need a skylight
we're just fixing that.
Look at that, looks like a new skylight.
That glazing putty doesn't last.
This will last.