Eynsford skylights and rooflights

The back bedroom under the slope

In a house with a pitched roof, the back bedroom can find its ceiling cut into by the rafters. The wall that carries the window may be a metre or so high, and the window itself is small. Light enters low and stops short of the bed, the wardrobe and the door. At the far side of such a room, a bulb is what you work by on any grey morning.

A roof window cut into the back slope changes where the light lands. It lies flush with the tiles, so it needs no raised kerb, and it throws a patch of daylight over the sloping ceiling and down to the floor. We settle the position from the furniture. Over the foot of the bed is one choice. Level with the dressing table is another. Either can be right in one room and wrong in the next, which is why we decide inside the room and check the slope outside afterwards.

Fitting means opening the roof between rafters. Should the opening you want span wider than one bay of rafters, a trimmer is fixed across and the load travels round the opening. We look at rafter spacing from the loft at survey, and at the insulation too, because the new unit must meet the thermal limit that applies to roof windows under the Building Regulations. Our guide to roof window price factors lists the extras that rafter work can add.

In a room under the slope, the insulation between the rafters meets the frame of the window, and the lining returns the ceiling to the edge of the glass.

The box room that became a desk

Between-the-wars semis tend to have a small room over the front door or beside the stairs. A box room is often used as a study, and a study wants steady light on the desk and none on the screen. A box room with a single side window usually offers neither. The window gives the wall beside it a bright strip and leaves the far corner grey.

When the box room sits directly beneath the tiles, a roof window above the desk can light the full width of the room. A south-facing slope gives the brightest light and can warm the room as well, which a blind or a tinted glass specification deals with. A north-facing slope is steadier and cooler, and for a desk that is often the more comfortable side. If another storey stands above the room, a roof window is out of reach, and a sun tunnel is the thing to ask about for a landing or a small room with no roof of its own.

A box room that doubles as a spare bedroom raises one more question: who sleeps there, and how bright a roof window may be at dawn. We discuss blinds for the unit while we stand in the room.

A box room under the slope often has a low wall at the window side, so the roof window is placed higher up the pitch than a wall window would be, at a height that suits the person at the desk.

Flat roof or pitched roof over the utility

The roof over a utility room is usually either a low pitch with felt or sheet over it, or a flat roof with a membrane. On a flat roof we can fit a flat roof rooflight on an upstand or, where the room is wide enough, a small roof lantern. Planning is where those two part ways. A lantern rises above the roof by more than 150 mm as a rule, which normally puts it beyond permitted development and makes a planning application the usual route for a lantern. A rooflight with a shallow upstand may sit inside the limits that apply to a house, and the survey checks the upstand height against the roof. The conditions are set out in our lantern planning guide.

Underneath, the build-up of the roof decides the work. We find out whether the deck is a warm roof, with insulation above the boards, or a cold roof, with it between the joists, and which way the joists run, because the opening is formed between them. Wiring, pipework from the washing machine and an extractor duct can all pass through the same ceiling void, and we trace them before a position is marked. Where the room has no outside wall at all, a sun tunnel often fits best, because it needs only a clear run up through the loft.

A utility room is a room people pass through quickly, so the unit is chosen for the light it gives and the air it lets out, and the view matters little.

Sevenoaks District Council and conservation areas

The council that rules on Eynsford applications is Sevenoaks District Council, and how the planning rules apply to a skylight is laid out in our guide.

Utility rooms collect damp air from washing machines and dryers, and a rooflight there does a second job if it opens: it lets damp air out through the roof. Whether a fixed or an opening unit suits depends on the duct, the power supply and the reach to the handle, all of which we note when we stand in the room.

There is a conservation area named Eynsford, and we check your address with the council before we comment on your house. Sitting inside a conservation area does not by itself take away permitted development for a rooflight on a house; only an Article 4 direction does that. When an application is required, the slope, the style of rooflight and the way it is bedded into the roof carry more weight. A listed house is different again, and our rooflights on listed buildings page covers why.

Cutting through a roof is also building work, with its own checks on structure, energy performance and sometimes fire. We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable.

Fitting the visit around the house

Eynsford station has National Rail services to London Blackfriars via Catford and to Sevenoaks. If someone in the household leaves on those trains, tell us which days the house is empty and we will plan the visit around it. A survey needs a look into the loft, a look at the roof from outside and a stand in the room that is going to get the light. It takes as long as a loft hatch and a ladder take.

We measure the proposed opening against the rafters or joists, check the covering, note the pitch and the way the slope faces, and ask what the room is used for. On the ground floor we also ask about the ceiling and what sits above it, because that settles the choice between a roof window, a flat rooflight, a lantern and a sun tunnel.

The price and the day

The document you receive lists the product, the type of glass, the roofing work and the decorative finish indoors, and ends in one fixed figure. On the day we protect the floors, cut the opening, set the unit and make it weathertight, then finish the reveals so the room can be painted. A 10-year workmanship guarantee goes into your hands in writing at handover.

Access is worth a word. Tell us where a van can stand, whether there is a side passage, and how the loft is reached, because tiles, glass and rafter timber all have to get to the room in question. A narrow staircase or a loft hatch changes how we carry the unit, and we plan around it before the day.

For households further out, Swanley and Crockenhill sit north-west of the village on our list, with West Kingsdown on the far side, south-east. WhatsApp 07880 284133 with a photograph, write to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk, or use the enquiry form lower down.