Skylight Installation Toronto: 20 Years of Velux and Fakro Certified Skylight Work, Founded by Marcus Chen

A Roofer's Kid From Scarborough

Marcus Chen grew up in Scarborough, and most of his summers were spent on roofs. His father was a residential roofer for a Markham company that did shingle replacements and, more and more through the 1990s, skylight installs. Marcus learned early that a roof only fails where someone rushed, and that a skylight is the easiest place on a roof to rush.

He went on to Humber College's Construction Engineering Technician program, then spent seven years as lead installer for a Toronto Velux-authorized dealer. That meant kitchen and bathroom skylight additions in Rosedale, Forest Hill and Yorkville, many of them on slate roofs and in heritage districts, many of them for architects who noticed every detail.

From One Truck in East York to Three Crews Across the GTA

In 2004 Marcus earned Velux Certified Installer status and launched Skylight Installation Toronto out of a rented East York yard with one truck. The idea was simple: do the framing, roofing, flashing and light shaft with one in-house crew, publish the prices and stand behind the flashing for life.

Twenty years later, that idea runs three install trucks, Velux and Fakro dealer accounts, 8 Canadian suppliers and more than 2,000 skylights installed. Commercial work has grown too, including a King West condo developer retrofit of 12 units (2024), a City of Toronto Public Library branch replacement on the Danforth (2024) and a 14-panel office tower lobby atrium at the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (2023).

"At Skylight Installation Toronto, our vision is to install skylights that light up Toronto homes and buildings for decades without a single leak. We enjoy the moment a homeowner steps into their kitchen after a skylight install and the room feels twice as big because of the daylight pouring in. We routinely hear that we exceeded their expectations, and this is what brings us joy." - Marcus Chen, Founder

How We Work Today

Every installer is an in-house, WSIB-covered employee. No rental crews, no subcontractors. Every install follows OBC 9.7 for fenestration, OBC 9.26 for roofing and CSA A440 for window performance, and solar and smart units are installed under ESA permits with TSSA solar electric compliance. We carry $5M in commercial general liability and $2M in property damage coverage.

We also keep learning. The crew attends the Canadian Roofing Contractors Association annual conference, and our work has been featured in Ontario Home Builder magazine and Canadian Architect. In our opinion, a certification is only worth something if the people holding it keep showing up to learn.