Skylight and rooflight fitting in Higham, Kent

The bathroom in the middle

Older houses often lacked a bathroom when they were built. When one was added, it often went wherever there was space: over the stairs, at the back of a landing, or in a slice taken from a bedroom. Those spots tend to be interior rooms with no outside wall. Daylight has to come from above, and the route depends on what is over the ceiling. A pitched roof with a loft on top suits a sun tunnel, whose tube passes across the loft space and ends in a frosted disc set into the ceiling. Where the bathroom sits directly under a roof slope, a roof window is possible instead. The detail is on the page about lighting a bathroom with a tunnel.

A bathroom that gets daylight also changes how the room feels. Tiles and paint look different in natural light, and a small room seems wider with a bright ceiling. A roof window that opens lets steam out at the top of the room as well. The ceiling panel of a bathroom sun tunnel is frosted, so nobody looking up from the bath sees the tube. Where a roof window is chosen instead, obscured glazing can be specified.

The landing over the stairs

Between the wars, builders put up semis in long runs, and the plan is often similar: two rooms downstairs at the front and back, the stairs rising along the party wall, and a landing at the top with a bathroom behind a door. The landing has no window on the party-wall side. If the stairs turn, the upper flight is darker still. A roof window on the rear slope, above the point where the stairs reach the first floor, brightens the landing and, if the bathroom door is open, the bathroom as well. This is a general pattern for houses of that age, so we confirm the layout on the day.

Reading the era from the loft

The roof space shows how a house was built. Older roofs often use thick timbers set at wide spacing, and later roofs often use lighter timbers closer together. The rafters decide how wide a roof window can be without the structure being trimmed, and the loft's height decides how a sun tunnel runs.

A loft room and its light

A loft room under a pitched roof has walls that slope in, and the usable floor sits low. A roof window gives sky straight overhead and light across the room, and a second one on the opposite slope balances the daylight over the day. Roof windows in a loft are also a question of safety. A converted loft above a two-storey house creates a storey higher than the level where windows count as escape, so the way out runs down the stairs. The Building Regulations guide sets out what that means for the work. A study or a spare bedroom in the roof is a usable room only once that is dealt with.

Fitting the unit to the rafters

Roof windows come in standard widths, and rafters are spaced to suit the roof, not the window. If the opening is wider than the gap, a rafter is trimmed and a new header carries the load, which is structure the Building Regulations care about. In a narrow roof the better answer may be two smaller windows.

Light from a roof window also travels differently by season. In summer the sun is high and the beam falls near the foot of the wall below the window, and in winter it is lower and reaches further into the room. A room that looks bright in July can look dim in January, so we judge the position on how it will work across the year.

Two windows or one

A single large window puts one big patch of light on the floor. Two smaller ones, side by side on the same slope, spread it and leave a rafter between them that needs no trimming. The pair costs more in flashing and in finishing, and the gain is a more even room. Which suits depends on the width of the loft and on where the furniture stands, so the choice is made with a tape measure in the room.

The study in the roof

A loft study is the quietest room in the house, and it wants even light on a desk or a drawing board. A window in the north-facing slope gives steady daylight with little glare; a south-facing slope brings more heat and more brightness, so a blind is wise. A window with a sill low enough to look out of while seated gives the room a view of the sky and the roofs around it, so we set the frame height with that in mind.

Headroom matters as much as light. The sloping ceiling means that someone at a desk against the low wall has little height, so the unit goes where there is room to stand beneath it. We mark that line on the plasterboard before cutting.

A loft room used for sleeping asks for different things from a study. A bedroom wants light that can be shut out, so a blind fitted to the roof window matters, and an opening unit lets the room take fresh air at night.

A kitchen extension on the village edge

Extensions to older houses are often one storey, with a flat or low-pitched roof, and they add a bright space at the cost of the room behind. The dim room is usually a dining room, a hall or a utility, and the roof above the extension is the way back to daylight. A flat rooflight is the lowest option, a lantern the tallest, and between them sit sizes to suit the span.

The free survey begins with how the room is used: where the cooker stands, where people sit and where the old back wall used to be. Then we go up and check the deck, the falls and whether the roof is warm or cold, since those settle the upstand and the product. Flat rooflights and lanterns are the usual answers for a flat deck, and the choice between them comes down to the depth of the room and the height of the ceiling; a roof lantern suits a deeper room. A lantern's glazed sides also let in light low in the sky, which suits a deep room where the ceiling is high enough to give the glass some height.

A fixed written quote comes next, listing the glass, the work to the covering and the plastering, and when the work is done our 10-year workmanship guarantee is given in writing.

The old pubs and the new light

The village once had four pubs, all now closed: the Sun Inn, the Chequers, the Railway Tavern and the Malt Shovel. A different kind of change of use matters for rooflights. A home made by converting a shop, an office or a barn may have lost the householder permitted development rights that an ordinary house keeps, and the planning guide explains which buildings that covers. If your home began as something other than a house, mention it when you get in touch.

On the day, the first job is to protect the way in: the hall, the stairs and the floor under the opening. Then the deck or the slope is opened up, the frame is set and flashed, and the inside is lined. A flat roof and a pitched roof go differently, and a pitched roof needs the tiles lifted and relaid around the flashing with the same care as the first time they were laid.

To begin, WhatsApp is 07880 284133 and email goes to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk; the quote form sits at the bottom of the screen.