Gravesend skylights and rooflights

The stairwell in an older terrace

A house built in the Victorian period is usually narrow and deep. The front room and the back room take daylight from either end, and the staircase runs between them against a party wall. At the top, the landing has no window and lives on borrowed light. If the loft can be reached and the slope above the stairwell is clear, a roof window in the rear pitch puts sky straight over the stairs. Because the glass is high, the light travels down the stairwell and reaches the hall as well. The pitch of the roof, the position of the party wall and the spacing of the rafters set how large the opening can be, and we measure all three from inside the loft. In a terrace the roof often runs on across several houses with the party walls rising through it, so a unit is positioned clear of the wall and its flashing.

Where a landing sits under a roof with a loft room above it, the picture changes. A loft conversion on a two-storey house creates a storey above 4.5 m, so it normally needs a protected escape route down the stairs, and a roof window in the loft is not accepted as that route. Our Building Regulations guide goes through the escape rules before any opening is planned over a stair.

Landings under a roof void also tell us how much headroom a light shaft has. A roof window over the stairwell needs a shaft between the rafters and the ceiling, lined and painted, and a shaft with angled sides spreads the light across the landing. The depth of the loft floor sets how long that shaft has to be.

The utility room that arrived later

Interwar houses were designed with a kitchen at the back and little else. A utility room was often added afterwards, sometimes as a lean-to against the kitchen wall, sometimes carved out of the old scullery. It tends to end up with one small window, if that. Under a lean-to or flat roof, a compact rooflight over the worktop lights the room from above. A washing machine and a drier add steam to the air, so ventilation comes up at the survey: a fixed unit lights the room, while an electric opening rooflight can also let the air out. Where a pitched roof and a loft stand over the room, the choice moves to a sun tunnel, which carries daylight along a tube from a dome in the roof.

A converted garage and other late additions

Any of the three house types may have gained an addition that cut a room off from its window. A garage turned into a study or a playroom keeps the old up-and-over door line as a blank wall, and the room behind it has a single window at best. The garage roof is usually flat or shallow, so a flat rooflight over the middle of the floor lights the whole depth. A raised lantern is another matter. It usually stands more than 150 mm proud, beyond the limit that applies to Class C, which means planning permission unless the council confirms otherwise, and the roof lantern planning guide goes through the steps. A low-profile unit is judged on its own measurements, and the survey tells you which side of the line your roof falls.

Plans packed around a core

The estates built after the Second World War often use a compact plan. The hall, the stairs and an internal bathroom gather at the heart of the house, with the living room at the front and the kitchen at the back. Riverview Park, a large housing estate, was built on a site the borough council took over in 1956. Houses of these three kinds go dark in different places.

Choosing the slope

Inside a conservation area the position of a unit gets more thought. A rear slope, out of sight of the street, is the usual first choice for a terrace, and the unit sits flush with the surrounding material. On a house where the rear slope is overshadowed or the stairwell is on the street side, the front slope may serve better and then the details of the unit matter more. The survey records both slopes, and the council's own guidance for the area is read before a choice is made.

Listed buildings and the river front

Royal Terrace Pier is a Grade II listed structure, like the Town Pier. For a house with its own listing, the roof window rules shift: the house keeps its Class C rights, but a new or altered roof window normally needs listed building consent, as the guide to rooflights on listed buildings shows. For an ordinary house, the Class C conditions in the planning guide apply in full: how far the unit stands off the original roof plane, its height against the highest part of the original roof and, on a slope forming a side elevation, obscure glazing with no opening part unless that part is more than 1.7 m above the floor of the room.

Bathrooms with no outside wall

An inside bathroom has no window, or a very small one, and relies on an extractor and a switch. It is also one of the better rooms for daylight from above, because the roof is often a short distance up. A sun tunnel runs from a dome in the roof, through the loft and into a diffuser in the ceiling. It suits a narrow room where the roof is a brief run away. Where the bathroom sits right under the slope, a small roof window gives more brightness and some sky, with a privacy glazing choice made at the survey. Condensation and fitting for the tube option are covered in the bathroom sun tunnel guide.

A new roof window or rooflight has to meet the energy limit in Part L of the Building Regulations, and cutting the opening counts as building work. We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable.

An old unit already in the roof

Houses of every era in Gravesend may already have a window in the slope, put in by an earlier owner. A failed or fogged unit can be replaced with a new one in the existing opening, and the size code on the frame tells us what is there. Replacing a roof window takes the window limit of 1.4 W/m²K, or Window Energy Rating band B, under Part L; the Part L guide explains the rule. Terraces add a detail of their own, the flashing where the roof meets a party wall, which gets examined before any opening is cut near it.

Aspect, privacy and the size of the opening

Once the route to the roof is clear, the way the slope faces comes first: a pane looking south delivers direct sun, and one looking north gives an even, cooler light. Privacy matters most in a bathroom, and the glazing choice answers it. Then comes the width of the opening. A roof window can only be as wide as the gap between rafters allows unless the rafters are trimmed, and a trimmed opening adds structural work and a line on the quote. A sun tunnel needs far less of the roof, and its diffuser sits in the ceiling at a size to suit the room. We take those readings in one visit, so the quote names a unit, a position and a size.

Nearby and getting started

Northfleet and Swanscombe both lie to the west of Gravesend, and Istead Rise lies to the south; Northfleet, Swanscombe and Istead Rise have pages of their own if you live on that side of town. The visit is free and it comes ahead of any price. What follows is a written figure and a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing once the job is done. WhatsApp 07880 284133, write to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk or send the quote form.