Chattenden skylights and rooflights

Depots, barracks and a recreation ground

The village has a military past. Construction of an Ordnance Depot began here in October 1872, the Royal Naval Barracks beside Beacon Hill Lane went up in 1875, the War Office built five magazines on a hillside above the River Medway the same year, and a site at Lodge Hill followed in 1899. A Royal Navy Wireless Station and a concrete pillbox followed in 1940. Those buildings are part of why we ask what a property was before it was a home. A house converted from a non-residential building under change-of-use permitted development does not carry the householder permitted development rights an ordinary house does, so a rooflight there starts with a conversation with the council. Our planning guide goes through who is covered.

The old recreation ground is now a housing estate. Houses on an estate like that usually have ordinary householder rights, unless a condition on their planning permission removed them.

A name older than the roads

The first datable record of the name is from October 1281, spelled Chattindone, and other early spellings include Chetindunam, Chatendune and Chetyndone. The age of a house sets its own limits on a roof job. Roofs of an older period can have rafters laid out for slates or hand-made tiles, while newer ones may use factory-made trusses at a different spacing. We read the roof before choosing the unit, and the covering and the timbers tell us what size and position will fit. At the survey we also measure the pitch, since that is one of the first things a manufacturer's range depends on.

The loft room

Where a roof void has been boarded, insulated and fitted with a staircase, the room may have full headroom only near the ridge. Glazing placed in the back of the roof puts glass over the part of the floor people actually use, and a gable window, which faces one direction only, cannot match its reach into the room. On a two-storey house a loft conversion creates a storey more than 4.5 m above the ground, so the escape route normally runs down a protected stairway; our Building Regulations guide sets out the rules.

Headroom decides a good deal. A loft room needs enough height at the point where someone will stand, so the position of the window is set to the floor plan as well as to the roof. A window placed too high leaves a view only of sky when seated, while one placed too low can run into the eaves. We sit down in the space, stand up in it, and work out where the opening can go without cutting a rafter that carries more than it should. The size we recommend follows from that rather than from the catalogue range.

A roof window in the back slope also brings sky light to a desk, and the lowest point of the opening is set so that someone sitting at it can see out. We take that measurement sitting down.

Which slope the window goes in matters for planning as well, and the conditions for a slope on the side of the house are in our guide to skylight planning permission.

The utility room

A utility room is often a narrow room, formed from a side passage, a lean-to or a slice of garage. It has a back door with a pane in it, perhaps a small window above the sink, and a wall of machines and cupboards. Light from a side window is blocked by the neighbour's fence or by the house next door. Because the room is single-storey, there is a flat or low-pitched roof directly overhead. A flat rooflight in that roof, set over the work surface, puts daylight on the work surface itself. If the roof is a flat one, the unit sits on an upstand, and the height of that upstand helps decide whether it needs planning permission. A lantern on a flat roof will normally stand taller than the permitted limit and needs an application, whereas a lower flat rooflight is judged against the 150 mm limit. The details are set out in the flat roof planning guide.

Machines add their own condition. A vented tumble dryer ventilates through the wall, a washing machine needs a drain, and a boiler cupboard may share the space. A rooflight is kept clear of any flue or vent terminal and set so that condensation from the room can run away from the frame. We note where each of these sits and draw the opening to avoid them. If the utility room is also the route to the garden, the unit is placed so that the daylight lands on the floor path as well as on the worktop.

Damp air from a dryer or a drying rack rises to the ceiling, so an opening rooflight over a utility room can let it out as well as bring daylight in. Where the unit is out of reach, a motor-driven version opens from a switch on the wall.

The hallway

A hallway has the front door, the stairs and a ring of doors, and often nothing else. When the doors are closed, it can be the darkest part of the house in the daytime. The usual fix is to put light in through the roof above the stairs. If the roof is a plain pitched one with an accessible loft, a roof window over the stairwell does it. Where the loft is full or the stairs are far from the slope, a sun tunnel carries daylight down a tube from a small dome to a diffuser in the hall ceiling, and it needs only a modest opening. The diffuser is fixed in the ceiling above the doors, where it lights the whole length of the passage.

Either route is building work, and we handle the Building Control notification where it is notifiable. A new roof window must meet the window figure of 1.4 W/m²K (or Window Energy Rating band B), and a rooflight 2.2 W/m²K, so we specify to suit. The Building Regulations guide explains how the checks work.

A hall ceiling also tells us something about the loft above it. In some houses the loft hatch sits over the landing, in others over a bedroom, and the position decides whether a sun tunnel can run straight or must bend. A bent tube still carries light, but it carries less, so we say where the straight route is available and how the length is measured.

Around the village

Close by, we also survey Hoo St Werburgh, High Halstow and Cliffe Woods. A survey in Chattenden costs nothing, the quote that follows is a written fixed one, and our workmanship is guaranteed for 10 years in writing. You can reach us on WhatsApp (07880 284133), by email (info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk) or via the quote form.