Specialists in Roofing Maintenance and Restoration
Exterior skylight cleaning on terraces and renovated homes across Newtown, Marrickville, Balmain and Glebe.
Get a free quote. Send your details and we will get back to you with a clear price.
Our Inner West work is fully insured. NSW contractor licence 500439C, held by Sergio Olea.
Terraces are long and narrow with windows at each end, so the middle of the house depends on whatever light comes through the roof. That makes a dirty skylight more noticeable here than almost anywhere else: a room that felt bright when you moved in slowly goes dull, and most people put it down to the weather rather than the glazing. The heavy street canopy adds to it, dropping leaf and fine debris that settles in the frame and along the flashing, where it holds moisture and encourages lichen spotting around the edges.
We look at the skylight and its surrounds first, including the type of glazing and how the unit sits in the roof.
We access the roof properly. On old slate and terracotta, walking the wrong line cracks material and creates a leak.
The outer glazing is cleaned so light gets through again, using methods suited to the material.
Leaf debris, grime and lichen spotting are cleared from the glazing and out of the frame where it collects.
We look over the flashing and the roof around the unit and flag anything we notice, such as lifted flashing or cracked tiles.
We check the finished skylight and the surrounding roof before we leave.
Call 0452 223 327 or send the form with your address and how many skylights you have.
We look at the skylights and roof access, and give you a price before any work starts.
We clean the glazing, clear the frame and surrounds, and do a final check of the area.
Yes, with care. These roofs crack when walked incorrectly, and a cracked slate or tile turns into a leak, so we access the roof properly rather than taking the shortest route across it.
This service covers the exterior glazing, which is where the dirt, leaf debris and lichen build up and where the light is actually being lost. Interior cleaning is a different job and depends on the unit.
No, and we would not tell you otherwise. A clean removes what is blocking the light. If a skylight is leaking, that is a flashing or seal problem and needs a repair, which is a separate piece of work. We will tell you what we see while we are up there.
If the light well is not doing what it used to, the glazing is usually the reason. Call us on 0452 223 327 or send the form for a free quote across the Inner West.
Newtown · Enmore · Erskineville · Camperdown · Marrickville · Dulwich Hill · Petersham · Stanmore · Lewisham · Leichhardt · Lilyfield · Rozelle · Balmain · Birchgrove · Glebe · Annandale · Ashfield · Summer Hill · Haberfield · St Peters
Also servicing surrounding Inner West suburbs. See our Inner West roofing page, or how we handle skylight cleaning across Sydney.
Australian standards and Code requirements we work to, with the source for each.
Observatory Hill has averaged around 1,213 mm of rain a year on records kept since 1858. Everything on the roof, from panels and skylights to gutters, has to keep working through that volume of water and the grit it carries off the surface.
NSW work health and safety law requires a safe work method statement for construction work where a person could fall more than two metres. Single-storey gutter and roof work clears that line, which is why the job is planned, harnessed or edge-protected before anyone gets on the roof.
Source: SafeWork NSW, working at heights
SafeWork NSW reports that most serious and fatal falls happen from roofs, ladders and building edges at four metres or under, and a fall from two metres can kill. A single-storey Sydney house is squarely inside that range.
Source: SafeWork NSW, falls from heights
Last updated: 8 October 2026
Skylight cleaning in the Inner West has its own rules: heritage areas and tight access all change how the job is done. Everything below links to the council or standard it comes from, so you can check it yourself.
The DCP limits replacement roofing to unglazed terracotta Marseilles tiles, terracotta shingle tiles, Welsh slate, or non-reflective corrugated galvanised steel, and the steel only at the rear or on skillion roofs. Finials and ridge capping have to be kept and reinstated.
Source: Inner West DCP 2016, Chapter E2, controls C17-C21The Marrickville Valley flood study found 3,989 properties taking more than 150mm of water in a 1 per cent storm, and 3,151 properties still flooded to that depth in a storm as common as a 2 year event. Flat ground and slow drainage are the cause, so undersized downpipes and blocked gutters bite in ordinary rain.
Source: Inner West Council, Marrickville Valley Flood StudyIn the Dobroyd and Hawthorne Canal catchments, 885 of 1,446 and 690 of 1,036 flood planning lots are affected by overland flow alone. Where your roof water is discharged, and whether it is piped properly to the kerb, matters more than how close you are to a watercourse.
Source: Inner West Council, Dobroyd and Hawthorne Canal FRMSP 2020Haberfield does not permit skylights on the front or side of the main roof and does not permit dormers at all. Hot water and solar tanks cannot sit on the roof either: they go inside the roof space or out of public view.
Source: Inner West DCP 2016, Chapter E2, controls C11-C15 and C89The whole suburb is a conservation area, recognised as Australia first planned garden suburb, with a period of significance from about 1900 to the 1940s. In practice almost every roof job in Haberfield is a heritage job.
Source: Inner West Council, C54 Haberfield HCAWe cover Haberfield, Ashfield, Summer Hill, Croydon, Leichhardt, Annandale, Balmain, Rozelle, Lilyfield, Marrickville, Dulwich Hill, Petersham, Stanmore, Newtown, Enmore, St Peters, Tempe, Sydenham and Lewisham.
In the Inner West it depends on whether the house sits in a heritage conservation area such as Haberfield or Annandale. Haberfield is a conservation area from end to end, and its DCP limits replacement roofing to unglazed terracotta Marseilles tiles, terracotta shingle tiles, Welsh slate or non-reflective corrugated galvanised steel, the steel only at the rear or on skillion roofs.
Inner West gutters overflow easily because much of the area is flat and drains slowly, so even ordinary storms flood homes. The Marrickville Valley flood study found 3,151 properties taking more than 150mm of water in a storm as common as a 2 year event, and in the Dobroyd and Hawthorne Canal catchments most flood-affected lots are hit by overland flow alone.
In Haberfield only at the rear: the Inner West DCP does not permit skylights on the front or side of the main roof there, and does not permit dormers at all. Hot water and solar tanks cannot sit on a Haberfield roof either.
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