Skylights and rooflights in Robertsbridge

A place built on for this long can have houses of many periods side by side. Older houses of this kind often have thick walls, low ceilings, small windows and rooms that open out of one another, since they were planned long before anyone thought of an open-plan kitchen. When a family adds to them, the old rooms often stay and the daylight does not follow.

The dining room that borrows from its neighbours

In a house with a deep plan, the dining room can end up in the middle, with the kitchen on one side and the sitting room on the other. A single window opening onto a passage or a side yard may be its only source of outside light. Once the door to the kitchen is shut, the room is lit by the lamp above the table at any time of day. A rooflight or sun tunnel above it brings in daylight where a bigger window is not possible, and it does that without taking floor space.

Colour and finish matter in a room like this. Pale walls and a white reveal spread the light that comes through the glass, whereas dark panelling soaks it up. The dining table does not have to sit under the opening either: light bounces off a ceiling and a wall and fills the whole room from a modest source.

The box room

A box room over the stairs rarely gets a full-sized window, because the roof comes down low on that side of the house. It is the sort of room where a desk, a cot or a spare bed fits, and where the window gives a slice of garden and little else. A roof window lifts it with sky from above and gives the walls somewhere to catch the light. Because the room is small, the window can be small too, and the choice of size is mostly governed by the rafter spacing and where the slope meets the wall.

A box room can change purpose over the years, from nursery to study to guest room. Daylight from the roof suits all of those uses, and a unit that opens gives the room fresh air without a window in the wall. We can discuss opening and fixed versions at the survey, along with blinds for a bedroom that needs to go dark at night.

If the house is listed

The two chapels on and near the High Street are listed at Grade II, and some of the older houses around them may be listed too. A listed house still has permitted development rights for a rooflight, but a new roof window in a listed building will almost always need listed building consent, and that application goes to the council. The consent looks at the historic fabric, the roof covering and how the opening would be seen. For a listed property, we begin with the council's own records. A chapel that has been converted to a home is a different case again: its permitted development rights depend on how the conversion was approved and whether the permission carried a condition that took them away, so we read the decision notice first.

What the rooflight looks like on an old roof

On an older tiled roof, the choice is often a conservation-style unit: a slim, black-framed window that sits flush with the tiles instead of standing proud. Handmade tile roofs are not flat, and the flashing has to follow their profile. We survey the roof covering carefully because it decides how a window is set, and the unit is chosen to suit the roof it is going into. Our guide to conservation rooflights goes into more detail.

Clay tiles, slate and stone slates each weather differently, and an old roof that has been patched over the years can carry more than one covering on the same slope. The covering is noted at the survey, because each one has its own flashing.

Building Regulations are separate again. We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable, and a new roof opening in an old house brings questions about the structure around it. Cutting through old rafters and ties needs thought, and the survey looks at what carries what before an opening is proposed. Where a rafter has to be trimmed, the load is picked up by new timbers around the opening.

A raised lantern is a separate case, since it normally needs an application of its own. Talk to the council early if you have one in mind for a village roof; the lantern planning page explains why. The survey gives you a clear picture of which options your roof allows.

The products we install are a roof window for a slope, a sun tunnel for a room below a loft, a flat roof rooflight where a roof is flat or nearly so, and a roof lantern for a larger extension. For a kitchen with a lean-to roof, the question is usually whether glazing fits in the slope itself.

Lean-to kitchens deserve a closer look. The roof usually runs from a ledge on the old house wall down to a low eaves, so headroom is limited and the angle is shallow. A window in that slope has to shed water at a low pitch, and we choose and flash it with that in mind. Light from the lean-to glass also reaches the old back windows, which stops them looking onto a dim passage.

A lean-to roof meets a high wall along its upper edge, and that edge needs a flashing of its own as well as the sides. The wall behind can be brick, stone or timber frame, so it is looked at alongside the covering before a unit is chosen.

Fitting is planned so the household can carry on. In a dining room that means the table and chairs go out or under sheets first, and in a box room the bed or desk is lifted clear. Furniture and floors are covered, the opening is formed and weathered, and the work then moves inside to the reveals and ceiling. At the end you have the paperwork for any notifiable work and our 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing.

The quote form, WhatsApp on 07880 284133 and email to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk all reach us. Villages close by get the same visit: Burwash lies west, Hawkhurst north, and Battle south.