Skylight Exterior Covers to save on summer A/C costs

[bennelson]

Does anyone here have experience using exterior covers on their skylights to save on summer heat gain?

I have two skylights on my house - one quite large one in our kitchen, and another in our upstairs bedroom. The kitchen one goes right into our main living area, and of course the upstairs is always very hot in the summer.

I LOVE my skylights. Unfortunately, the ridge of my house runs north/south, and both skylights are on west side of the roof - pretty much the WORST place for heat gain in the summer.

I'm interested in the idea of covering both skylights (from the outside) in the summer, probably with a translucent instead of opaque material, so I still get at least a little diffuse light.

Does anyone have experience with exterior skylight covers?

Alternatively, I might also like to try an interior diffuser on our large kitchen skylight in the summer. It would bounce SOME heat/light back out, but at least we wouldn't have the giant summer death ray any more! I was thinking perhaps a piece of plexiglass mounted parallel to the ceiling that was sprayed with "Bathroom Privacy Frosted Glass" spray.