Skylight and rooflight fitting in Wateringbury
Wateringbury is a village on the Medway Valley Line, with the brick bungalows at Leasdene and a station of its own. A bathroom, a stair or a dining room in a house here can get very little daylight through the winter months.
- Free survey, fixed written quote
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
Winter afternoons in a Wateringbury house
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1 The bathroom at the centre of the plan In a low-rise bungalow the bathroom often sits between the bedrooms with no outside wall. By mid-afternoon in December it needs the light on, and a sun tunnel or a small roof window fixes that. -
2 Stairs that turn away from the window An older house may have a stair with a landing window at the bottom and nothing higher up. At four o'clock the upper flight is dim, and a unit in the rear slope lights it from above. -
3 A dining room used after dark A dining room at the back of the house often only gets daylight at the garden end. A rooflight overhead gives the table light from the sky that a window at the garden end does not.
A river village, brick bungalows and the inner bathroom
A bathroom with no outside wall is easy to light from the roof, and the terms are simple.
The Wateringbury Stream flows into the River Medway just above Bow Bridge. Between 1740 and 1747 the Medway Navigation Company made the Medway navigable above Maidstone, which let bulky cargo move by water. In 1844 the Medway valley railway gave the village another link for passengers and cargo, and the station is still on the Medway Valley Line. At Domesday, in 1086, the place was two manors, held in 1066 by Leofeva and Godil, and three mills were recorded, of which one still exists.
Roof units, named
- Rooflight
- A glazed unit installed out of plane with the surface of the roof, on a kerb or upstand.
- Roof window
- A window fitted facing the same way as the roof around it, lying in its plane.
- Roof lantern
- A glazed structure with sloping sides on a flat roof; it counts as a rooflight.
- Sun tunnel
- A small dome on the roof joined by a tube to a diffuser in the ceiling below.
Low-rise bungalows and the room in the middle
A notable scheme in the village is the low-rise brick bungalows at Leasdene on Upper Mill, completed by Belcher and Clapson architects in 1966. As a general pattern, a bungalow plan often works like this. The bedrooms and living room take the outer walls. The bathroom, and often the hall, end up in the middle with no window, or one small obscured pane. A bathroom needs privacy glass anyway, and a roof is the one side of the house where nobody can see in.
That makes a bathroom the easiest dark room to deal with. For a bathroom, the sun tunnel option carries daylight down a tube and spreads it from a diffuser set into the ceiling, which needs a roof opening only a few hundred millimetres across. Where there is space and the roof pitch allows, a small roof window gives a view of sky and can open to clear steam. Which one suits depends on the roof above, the loft height and how much light the room needs.
Bungalow roofs vary in pitch and in how much loft space they have. A shallow pitch rules some units out, and the limits are explained in the answer on how shallow a roof can be. When we survey a bungalow we go into the loft first, since the tank, the extract duct and the ceiling joists decide where a shaft can run. A bungalow loft is often a single shallow space running the length of the house, so one visit up there shows the route for every opening the plan might need. Hatch size, boarding and the position of the water tank are noted at the same time, because they decide how materials get up and which routes are open.
Steam, privacy and the finished ceiling
A bathroom adds two demands that a landing does not. It makes steam, so a roof window that opens, or a sun tunnel paired with a fan, helps the room dry out. And it needs privacy, which a roof does well, since the glass faces the sky and nobody can see in. Inside, we line the shaft with moisture-resistant board and finish it in paint that suits a damp room. Above a shower, the glazing choice is settled during the visit, because steam and hot water reach the glass directly there.
Lighting a stair that turns away from the window
Older houses can leave their upper flights in the dark.
Stairs in an older house tend to sit against one party wall, with the window, if there is one, at the foot or on the half-landing. Climb past that window and the flight turns away from it. By the top, the daylight comes only from whichever bedroom door is open. The Style family held Wateringbury Place from the early 17th century to the early 19th, and was made baronets in 1627, but a house does not need a grand history for its stairs to be dim. All it needs is a stair that was designed around candle and oil lamp, and later wired for electric light.
A roof window over the landing
The cleanest fix is a roof window set in the slope above the upper landing, joined to the ceiling by a short shaft. The shaft is framed between the rafters and lined with white-painted board, and its sides are splayed so that the light spreads across the landing and falls down the stairwell. White paint on the splayed sides reflects the light down the flight, while a dark shaft absorbs it. If the landing sits behind the ridge, the unit can go in the rear slope, which leaves the front elevation unchanged. The glass meets the Part L limit for a new or replacement roof window: 1.4 W/m²K, or Window Energy Rating band B at minimum.
Where the roof void above is too shallow or too crowded for a splayed shaft, a sun tunnel with a rigid tube carries the same idea in a smaller form. There is a longer comparison on the page about rigid and flexible sun tunnels.
What shifts the cost of a stair job
A stair job looks small but the work can be more involved than the opening suggests. Scaffold or a tower may be needed, and so may a plan for working over a stairwell without dropping debris down it. We cover the stairs and the hall floor before anyone goes up.
The landing at the top of the stairs is also the place where children, pets and laundry baskets cross the line of the opening. The ceiling reveal is therefore kept plain and square so that nothing catches on it. If the loft over the landing is used for storage, the boards around the shaft are re-laid and the hatch stays where it was.
A unit that opens over the stairwell also lets stale air out at the top of the house.
What moves the figure on a stairwell roof window
- Depth of the shaftA tall loft needs a longer, taller lined shaft than a shallow one.
- Protecting the stairsCovering treads, handrail and hall floor before any work above.
- Rafter workWhether the opening sits between rafters or needs timbers trimmed and doubled.
- Reach to the roofTower or scaffold, depending on the height and the ground around the house.
Dining rooms in winter, and who signs it off
Winter changes what a dining room needs from its windows. The days are short from November to February, and the light through a wall window fades with distance from the glass. A rooflight faces the sky overhead, so it puts some of its light into the middle of the room. In a dining room used at breakfast and then again after dark, daylight in the middle of the day matters less than daylight at the table when the family sits down in the early evening. A dining room that opens on to a garden or kitchen often has glazed doors at one end and a darker far corner, which is where a rooflight or lantern can go. Whichever unit is chosen, the dining table is the reference point: we mark its position on the ceiling plan, so the brightest part of the opening sits above the seats. In a dining room that doubles as a homework table, the glass type and the blind are worth settling at the same time as the size.
Choosing a flat rooflight or a lantern comes down to the ceiling height. A dining room with a flat ceiling and a flat extension roof above it can take a lantern whose glazed sides rise above the roof line, and the room then sees more sky from the table. In a lower room, a flat unit set into the ceiling suits better. A lantern on a flat roof normally needs planning permission, because it usually stands more than 150 mm above the roof.
Myth
A dining room needs a south-facing wall of glass to be bright in winter.
Fact
A wall window lights the floor nearest to it best. A rooflight takes light from the sky above, whichever way the wall faces.
Conservation areas near the village
Conservation areas near the centre include ones named Pizien Well, Wateringbury; Wateringbury; and Wateringbury Station. We check your address with Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council. Our conservation area guide covers where the position changes, and the planning guide sets out the conditions that apply to a house.
Sign-off and travel
Cutting a roof opening is building work. We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable, and the Building Regulations guide lists what the inspector looks at. Wateringbury is about 6 road miles west of Maidstone, so a survey takes little travelling for us. The finished job carries our 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing.
WhatsApp 07880 284133, write to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk, or fill in the form below. Close neighbours we cover include Kings Hill, West Malling and Yalding.
Stairs, bungalows and the station area
We live near Wateringbury station. Is there anything extra to check before a rooflight goes in?
There is a conservation area named Wateringbury Station near the village centre. A conservation area on its own does not take away Class C permitted development; only an Article 4 direction does. We check your address against Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council's records at the survey.
What lights a bathroom in the middle of a bungalow?
A sun tunnel or a small roof window, depending on the roof pitch and the loft above. Both put daylight into a room with no outside wall, and a roof window that opens clears steam as well. The loft decides which is the better fit.
Could a roof window in a bungalow's loft room serve as the escape window?
For rooms in the roof of a bungalow or chalet bungalow within 4.5 m of the ground, a roof window can be the escape window if the opening meets the size, height and staying-open conditions in the Building Regulations guide.
How do you get daylight onto stairs that turn halfway up?
A roof window above the upper landing, with a lined and splayed shaft below it, sends light down the flight. We look at the loft first, because the shaft has to pass the rafters and any pipework. Where the roof void is tight, a narrower tube from a sun tunnel may be the answer.
Which nearby villages do you cover?
Kings Hill, West Malling and Yalding are all within a few miles of Wateringbury, and we visit each of them.
Do I pay anything for you to come and look at my roof in Wateringbury?
Nothing. We come out, go through the rooms that are dark and the roof space above them, and send you a fixed written quote afterwards.
Nearby towns to Wateringbury
Book your free survey
Tell us about the room that stays dark. We come out, look at the room and the roof, then send a fixed written quote.
Or on 07880 284133, or call 01622 277162
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