Rooflights and skylights for Aveley homes
Aveley sits just inside the M25, with the A13 along its southern edge. The stairwell, the landing and any room built into the roof can all take daylight through the roof above them.
- Free survey, fixed written quote
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
Dark corners under a pitched roof
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1 A landing with no outside wall Upstairs, the landing sits between bedroom doors and may have nothing glazed at all. Fitting a roof window or sun tunnel over it sends daylight down the stairs. -
2 Stairs in the core of the plan A stairwell sits between rooms, so it borrows light from open doors. The roof above its top flight is the one place where nothing stands in the way of the sky. -
3 A loft room with one small window A room under the slope may have a single gable window. A roof window in the pitch spreads light across the whole floor.
Aveley's edges and the houses inside them
A place with a motorway on one side has to add space upwards and backwards.
Aveley sits just inside the M25, which bounds it on the east. The A13 runs along the south, and the London Borough of Havering lies to the north and west. When a house cannot grow sideways, extra space goes into the loft and out into the garden. Loft rooms and rear extensions both deepen the plan while the windows stay on the same few walls, and that is how a house ends up with rooms that no window reaches. A landing, a stairwell and a loft room each have a different stretch of slope above them, so each asks its own question of the roof.
Aveley's parish church of St Michael is a Grade I listed building dating from the 12th century, and the Domesday Book of 1086 already records the name, in spellings such as Alvithelea and Alvileia. Around it, newer housing has gone in on former farm ground: the barn of Court's Farmhouse was demolished to make way for a modern housing estate. Modern estate houses are often built as semis and short terraces, with the staircase near the middle of the plan. If your own home is a listed building, tell us in your first message, because a new roof window in a listed house almost always needs listed building consent.
Myth
A landing with no window will stay dim unless the ceiling is taken away and the loft opened up.
Fact
A tunnel run through the loft void, or a roof window overhead, can lift a landing and leave its ceiling intact. The loft and the slope above decide which one suits.
The landing nobody lit
Upstairs in a house of that layout, the landing runs between the bedroom doors and the bathroom, and none of its walls face outdoors. With the doors shut it is the darkest place in the house. Fitting skylights in Aveley houses of this plan is mostly a question of where the roof slope sits in relation to that landing. If the pitch rises directly above it, a roof window in that slope puts a patch of daylight on the carpet. If the loft floor and a run of rafters lie between the landing ceiling and the tiles, a sun tunnel carries the light down through the void instead.
The hall at the foot of the stairs is the last stop for that light. A front door with a small glazed panel gives a hall some daylight, but a door without glass leaves it to the landing above. Brightening the top of the stairwell therefore brightens the hall too.
The stairwell
The stairwell is a tall, narrow shaft that borrows light from whichever door is open. The ground-floor hall at the bottom gets the least of it. A roof window placed over the top flight lights the whole stair, because daylight falls down the opening and across each tread in turn. The window can be small, and the sill height of the unit matters less than where it sits over the opening. We work that out on the landing itself with a tape and a torch, looking up at the rafters from below. Daylight through a roof window arrives at an angle, so the top flight takes the brightest patch and the lower treads pick up what bounces back from the walls. Pale paint on the stair walls carries that light further down the well.
Where a roof window is the answer, our roof window service covers both the new opening and the swap of an old unit.
Rooms under the slope
Under a pitched roof the ceiling follows the rafters, and the one window, where there is one, is usually in the gable end, set in the wall that closes the roof at either side of the house. That leaves the middle of the room lit from a single side. A roof window in the slope adds a second source from above, and because the glass is tilted with the roof it faces the sky. The sloping ceiling then reflects that light back down into the room.
Where the window goes depends on the room. In a loft study it should sit over the desk, so the daylight arrives from above and behind the screen. In a loft bedroom it is better placed over the foot of the bed and the floor space beside it. We settle the position at the survey, standing in the room, and mark it against the rafters so the opening cuts the fewest of them. A roof window in the slope looks up at the sky, where a gable window only looks along the garden or the road.
| Spot | What sits above it | What we look at first |
|---|---|---|
| Landing | A loft void between the ceiling and the tiles | A sun tunnel through the void, or a roof window if the slope is directly overhead |
| Stairwell | The stair opening and the slope over the top flight | Roof window set in the pitch over the opening |
| Loft room | The rafters and the roof covering itself | A roof window set over the part of the floor you use most |
Floor space under the eaves is limited by the low wall where the ceiling meets the floor. A roof window set higher up the slope throws its light onto the part of the room where you can stand upright, which is where a bed, a desk or a wardrobe goes. A long loft room is often lit better by two small roof windows than by one large one, because each lights its own half of the floor. Sizing it takes a look at the rafter spacing from inside, because the frame has to sit between members that already carry the roof.
Escape from a room in the roof
A loft conversion on a two-storey house creates a storey more than 4.5 m above ground, so it normally needs a protected escape route down the stairs. A roof window in that loft will not be accepted as the way out, whatever its size. The Approved Document B route through an escape window applies only to storeys no more than 4.5 m up, which is why a roof window can serve as the escape window for a room in the roof of a bungalow or chalet bungalow. The size and height conditions for the opening are in our Building Regulations guide.
A new opening in the roof counts as building work in its own right. That brings in the structure round the opening, how well the glass keeps heat in and, for a loft room, the fire and escape questions. A new or replacement roof window takes the window limit of 1.4 W/m²K (or Window Energy Rating band B) under Part L, and we handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable.
Thurrock Council, and what happens at the survey
Planning questions in Aveley go to Thurrock Council, the local planning authority. One condition is worth knowing before you look at the roof of a semi. For a rooflight or roof window to count as permitted development, any window on a roof slope forming a side elevation of the house has to be obscure-glazed and non-opening, unless the parts that open are more than 1.7 m above the floor of the room it is in. A hipped roof has a side slope, so the choice of slope can matter, and a gabled house usually has only front and rear slopes to choose from. The other conditions, and the cases where householder rights do not apply at all, are in our skylight planning guide.
Getting to Aveley
Maidstone to Aveley is about 26 miles, heading north-west, which keeps it inside our 30-mile radius. The survey costs nothing, and the written quote afterwards is a fixed one. We arrive knowing the roof type from your photographs and leave knowing the loft, the rafter spacing, the covering and the route to the roof.
Roof access and the loft
A house on a close or a cul-de-sac may mean the van waits some way from your door. Inside, a loft with boarding and stored boxes needs clearing at the point where we work. When the work is finished you have our 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing, and the opening is made good ready for paint.
The loft hatch is a practical limit that gets measured at the survey. A unit or a sun tunnel has to reach the roof space somehow, and the size of the opening, the clear height under the rafters and the depth of any insulation laid across the joists all affect how we plan the day. A sun tunnel needs a clear line from the roof dome down to the ceiling diffuser, so a water tank or a bundle of cables in the loft can move its route. We also check the line from the roof window down to the room below, so the lining we build at the ceiling meets the plasterwork in a clean edge.
To start, WhatsApp us on 07880 284133, email info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk or send the details through the form further down. If you are on the edge of Aveley, we also cover South Ockendon, Purfleet-on-Thames and Chafford Hundred.
What moves the price of a landing or loft job
- Number of openingsOne roof window over the stairs is a smaller job than a separate unit in each of two loft rooms.
- Roof coveringThe tile or slate has to be lifted and flashed around the new frame.
- Loft accessHow easily we can reach the void for lining, and for a sun tunnel run.
- Finish insideThe depth of the reveal and the surface left ready for paint.
Landings, stairwells and loft rooms
Nothing on our landing is glazed. Which fix suits it?
It comes down to what is overhead. Where the pitch rises straight over the landing, a roof window fits; where loft space intervenes, a sun tunnel carries the light down. The ceiling stays in either case, and a tunnel needs a clear run through the loft.
Can the roof window in a loft bedroom be the fire escape?
On a two-storey house, no. A loft conversion there creates a storey above 4.5 m, which normally needs a protected escape route down the stairs, and a roof window in the loft is not accepted as that route. A bungalow or chalet bungalow is the exception, and then the opening size and height have to meet the Approved Document B figures.
Who decides planning questions for a rooflight in Aveley?
Thurrock Council is the local planning authority. A roof window on a house usually falls under permitted development, according to the kind of dwelling and the distance the frame projects beyond the original roof slope; our planning guide goes through the conditions.
Does a newer estate house need anything different from an older one?
The roof structure and covering decide the fixing details, so each roof is looked at on its own terms during the survey. The aim is the same on any house: find where daylight stops and put a unit above it.
Nearby towns to Aveley
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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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