Rooflights and skylights for Battle homes
Battle grew around an abbey, and its High Street is still famed for looking old-fashioned. Behind the shopfronts and the older houses, the rooms that lose their light are the ones furthest from a window: the utility room, the hallway and the back bedroom.
- Free survey, fixed written quote
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
Winter afternoons in Battle
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1 The utility room at four o'clock A utility room often sits between the kitchen and the garden door with one small window, or none. In December it is the first room to go dim. -
2 A hall that borrows its light A hallway runs from front door to stairs with doors off both sides. Once the sun drops, the glass in the front door is the only daylight it has. -
3 Back bedrooms at dusk A bedroom facing away from the afternoon sun darkens early in winter. A window in the roof looks at open sky, so it goes on working after the wall windows have faded.
An abbey, a High Street and the High Weald
A town of long standing, with rooms at the back of the plan.
Battle grew around an abbey, built on the orders of King William to commemorate the battle and dedicated in 1095. The first recorded gunpowder mill in the town went up in 1676, on land the abbey owned. Today Battle lies within the High Weald National Landscape, and its High Street is famed for being old-fashioned, with shops and restaurants on either side. The A2100 and the A21 link the town to Hastings and London.
| Room | Roof option we check |
|---|---|
| Utility room | Flat rooflight in a single-storey roof; roof window if the roof is pitched |
| Back bedroom | Roof window in the rear slope, kept clear of the bed |
| Landing | Roof window directly above the stairwell |
| Hallway | Sun tunnel through the loft where no slope sits overhead |
What an old town leaves in the dark
A town with an abbey at its centre has been added to for a long time, and the houses show it. The Victorian period left its mark as well: Battle has a Grade II listed example of Victorian Gothic revival architecture, designed by William Tess. Ordinary Victorian houses are often tall and narrow, with steep roofs and a rear addition put on later to hold a kitchen or scullery. A room tacked onto the back of a house in that way sits furthest from the windows at the front, and it is usually the first to need help.
The utility room
Nobody plans a utility room around daylight. It sits between the kitchen and the back door, holds the washing machine and a sink, and gets by with one small window or a half-glazed door. When it lies inside a single-storey rear addition, the roof over it is the one surface open to the sky. A flat rooflight there gives the room light at any hour, and a pitched roof can take a roof window for the same job. A flat rooflight over a utility room sits on a kerb above the roof deck, and the roof covering is lapped up to meet it. Our flat roof rooflight page has the options for flat roofs.
The hallway
The hall is the room nobody sits in and everybody crosses. It is narrow, and doors on both sides cut it off from the windows of the rooms they lead to. Light from above helps more than a paler wall, because it enters at the top of the stairwell and falls the full height of the space. Where the stair rises to a loft under a pitched roof, a window over the stairs is the obvious candidate. Where the hall lies under a flat-roofed part of the house, a flat rooflight can serve it instead.
Back bedrooms and landings
Upstairs, the pattern repeats. A back bedroom at the end of a landing has one window facing the garden, and the landing itself has no window at all. A rear slope above either can carry a roof window, set so that it lights the middle of the floor and clears the bed head. A slope that faces north gives an even, cool light, and one facing south gives more light and more heat, so we note the aspect at survey because it shapes the glass and the blind we suggest. A bedroom in the roof has its ceiling cut by the slope, so a roof window sits higher in the room than a wall window and sends light across the floor.
Planning in Rother, and what shapes a quote
Rother District Council handles planning for Battle. Whether a roof window needs an application at all is settled by national conditions, and our skylight planning guide walks through them.
Listed houses and the conservation area
There is a conservation area named Battle. A house inside one keeps its Class C rights unless an Article 4 direction has removed them, which is a separate order the council has to have made; to check for one, see the Article 4 page. A listed house is a different case. Its Class C rights remain, but a new or altered roof window almost always needs listed building consent, and rooflights on listed buildings covers that route.
Sign-off for a roof opening
Opening a roof is building work. Where it is notifiable we handle the Building Control notification, and the council's building control team or a registered building control approver checks it. The Building Regulations for skylights page lists what those checks cover. We also replace existing units, and the energy standard for a replacement is covered in our Part L page.
What the survey measures
In the loft we measure the rafter spacing, look at the condition of the timbers and note any wiring or pipework that would have to move. On the roof we record the covering and the pitch. Those readings give the size of opening the roof can take without extra strengthening, and they are the base of the written quote.
The covering under the unit
A roof window sits in the plane of the roof, so the tiles or slates around it have to be cut back and lapped over a flashing that matches them. Rafters in an older roof may not line up with the window you have chosen, so the width of the opening is set by the timbers as well as by the room. We specify a flashing to suit the covering, whether that is plain tile, slate or something profiled, and it is written into the quote from the start. Our page on roof window flashings shows the detail. A roof that is due to be re-covered anyway changes the order of work, because the flashings can go in as the new covering is laid.
What a Battle quote is built from
A quote for one roof window is a list of parts, and each part can move. The covering decides the flashings. The pitch and the size of the opening decide how much of the roof is cut and how the rafters are carried. The route to the roof decides what access we need. Our costs page lists what changes the price on any job, and roof window cost goes into the single-window case. When each part is listed separately on the quote, a gap between two quotes is easy to trace to its line.
Points that shape a Battle quote
- Roof coveringTile, slate or felt each take a different flashing and different handling.
- Pitch and opening sizeA steeper slope and a larger opening mean more cut timber to support.
- Reaching the roofScaffold or ladder access, and how near a vehicle can park.
- Glazing specificationFixed or opening, the glass type and any blind.
- Finish insideLining the reveal, plastering and whether decoration is included.
Short winter days at the back of the house
In December the sun has set by about four, and a house without much roof glass feels it first in the rooms at the back. The hallway goes first. It has no outside wall on its long sides, and it takes light from the front door glass and from whatever spills out of the rooms either side. If the stair rises into the roof space, a window set in the roof over the stairwell lights the hall along with the landing. Where no slope lies overhead, a sun tunnel through the loft can do it, and do sun tunnels work covers what to expect from one on a dull day.
The back bedroom loses its light in a quieter way. Its one window faces a garden, a fence or the back of the next house, and the room darkens from the corners inwards. A bedroom that doubles as a desk space, a nursery or a sewing room is in use through the afternoon, which is when a window in the roof makes the biggest difference. The unit goes where the daylight will fall on the desk or the cot, and we check that position against the rafters before the size is fixed.
Myth
A window in the roof is a summer feature and does nothing for a dark winter afternoon.
Fact
It looks at open sky all year, so it also brings in winter daylight. The glass loses more heat when it is cold outside, which is why the specification is chosen with care.
The back bedroom in summer and winter
A window in the roof lets in light across the whole day, and a bedroom that faces away from the sun in January can get hot under the same glass in July. Blinds, glass specification and which way the slope faces all play a part, and we talk through them at the survey. More on summer heat is in do rooflights overheat a room. If the bedroom sits in the roof, we also check its headroom at the eaves and how high the sill stands from the floor, since both decide where the unit can sit.
Getting started from East Sussex
The survey is free. After it you get a written quote with a fixed figure, and the finished work comes with a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing. To book a survey, WhatsApp 07880 284133, write to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk or complete the quote form. Tell us which room is the problem and roughly where the stairs sit, and we will arrange a time. Villages near Battle are on our list too: Robertsbridge, Burwash and Northiam.
Utility rooms, halls and back bedrooms
We are at the far edge of your area in Battle. Is that a problem?
Battle lies about 30 miles by road south of our Maidstone base, near the outer edge of the area we cover but within it.
What does a conservation area mean for a roof window on a Battle house?
Very little by itself. Rother District Council holds the records for the area, and your address is checked against them at the survey.
Can you light a utility room that has no outside wall?
If a roof is overhead, yes. A flat rooflight suits a flat-roofed extension and a roof window suits a pitched one. A utility room in the middle of a two-storey house, with bedrooms above, has no roof of its own to use, and a sun tunnel would need a route up through the floors above.
The hallway is dark but there are bedrooms above it. Is there any way?
Light from the roof only reaches the hall if there is a route for it. A stairwell that rises into the roof space is one route, and a sun tunnel across the loft is another where no slope sits directly overhead. With solid rooms above and no loft, the roof cannot help the hall.
My back bedroom gets hot in summer. How is that handled with a roof window?
Glass specification, a blind and the direction of the slope all affect it, and we choose them together at the survey. Our overheating guide explains the effect in more detail.
Nearby towns to Battle
Book your free survey
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
No obligation. We survey before we price.