Skylight and rooflight fitting in Ashford, Kent

The hallway on an estate plan

Work on the Park Farm estate was under way in the late 1990s, and estate houses of that period often follow a familiar plan. The front door opens into a hall with the stairs rising along one wall, and living room, kitchen and cloakroom lead off it. Stairs and landing end up in the centre of the house, which leaves the hall with borrowed light only. Set into the slope over the stairwell, a roof window drops daylight onto the landing and, if the staircase is open, onto the hall floor. Where the ceiling lies a long way below the roof, a tube-type sun tunnel takes over, passing the light through the loft space. The gap between roof and ceiling picks between the two, and the tape goes up in the loft to measure it.

A hall with stairs rising from it deserves one more check. Anything built over a stair has to be looked at against the escape rules, which is why the Building Regulations guide is worth reading before a window is placed over a stairwell that serves a loft room.

Borrowed light between rooms

Doors matter as much as windows in a hall. A solid door shuts the hall off from the living room and the kitchen, while a door with glass panels lets what light there is pass through. A roof window over the stairwell adds a new source to this chain, and the glazed doors then share it with the rooms on the ground floor. If the doors are replaced at the same time, the order of work is worth planning so that the plasterwork and the decoration are done once.

A window already in the slope

Houses from the 1990s onward may already carry roof windows of that age. If a unit has misted between the panes or the opening mechanism has worn, it can be replaced like for like in the existing opening, and the size code on the frame tells us what is there. If the room still feels dim with the window in place, the answer may be a larger unit or a second one, and the rafters beside the opening decide what is possible.

What sits in the loft

Roofs on newer estate houses are frequently framed with factory-made trusses set close together, where an older house has individual rafters. Cutting into a trussed roof means the load is carried round the opening before anything is removed, so the structure is understood first. Our survey in the loft covers the truss or rafter positions, the depth of insulation and any water tank or services that cross the line we want to use.

A bedroom in the roof

Some estate houses have a room in the roof, and some bungalows and chalet-style homes have bedrooms there from the start. A roof window brings in the sky for a room like that, and sometimes serves as its escape window, provided the opening and the sill height meet the Approved Document B sizes. Where the bedroom is a conversion on top of a two-storey house, the rule changes, since the protected route down the stairs does the escape job. Details are in the Building Regulations guide.

Two rooms made into one

A through-lounge made from a front room and a dining room has its windows at the front and the back. If a rear extension has since taken the back window, the lounge keeps only the front light. A roof window or a rooflight placed over the far end of the room gives it a second source. On an extension of one storey under a flat roof, a rooflight close to the original back wall lights the new space and the old room together. Where a bedroom sits directly above, the options narrow, and the survey works out whether the extension roof can serve. The flat roof rooflight range shows the units that suit a low roof.

What the survey prices

Each line in the band varies with the house. The roof above a hallway on one estate may be a shallow pitch with a deep loft, and on another a steeper one with trusses close to the stairwell, so the same size of unit does not take the same amount of work. Anything that depends on what the loft holds is looked at before the figure is written, so the figure covers the job described.

Listed and older buildings

A cluster of medieval half-timbered buildings survives in Middle Row and around the churchyard. Repton Manor House, in the middle of the former barracks, is a Grade II listed building that remains intact. The barracks around it closed in 1997 and the site was sold to developers in 2002. A listed house keeps its Class C rights, yet a new or altered roof window will almost always need listed building consent, so the first question at a listed address concerns the listing. Our listed-building rooflight guide shows what an application contains.

A lantern over an extension

On a house that has gained a rear extension, a roof lantern over the new space is a different type of job from a flat-roof rooflight or a pitched-roof window. A lantern normally rises over 150 mm from the flat roof surface, so it falls outside Class C and needs planning permission unless Ashford Borough Council confirms otherwise. The lantern planning guide follows the process. If you are weighing it against a low-profile rooflight, the survey measures the opening before the choice is made.

The bathroom with no window

An internal bathroom is one of the easier rooms to improve. A sun tunnel starts at a small roof dome, passes through the loft and ends at a flat diffuser overhead, and the bathroom sun tunnel guide covers moisture and positioning. A bathroom directly beneath the slope can take a small roof window for brighter light. Either has to meet the Part L energy standard, and a new opening in the roof is building work; we handle the Building Control notification where it is notifiable.

Which way the roof faces

The slope over a hall or a bathroom can face any compass point. A south-facing pane brings in direct sun and warms the room it serves; a north-facing one gives a steady, even light all day. The aspect affects what size feels right, so the compass reading goes into our notes on the roof.

Before the visit

A few minutes of preparation save time at the house. Clear the loft hatch, note which room is the problem and when in the day it is at its worst, and if you have an old window in the roof, find the size code on its frame. A sketch of the room, even a rough one, shows us what you have in mind. If you know roughly when the house was built, say so: it helps us judge whether the roof is trussed or framed with rafters before we reach the loft. Which way the room faces is worth noting too.

From first message to finished ceiling

The visit is free, and the work finishes with a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing. Surveys also run in Wye, Brabourne Lees and Finberry. A WhatsApp message to 07880 284133 starts the process, email works at info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk, and the quote form serves the same purpose.