Rooflights and skylights for Erith homes
Erith sits on the Thames in the London Borough of Bexley, with a curved riverside high street and the longest pier in London. Behind that waterfront, houses of many ages share one problem: rooms a long way from any glass, under a roof with nothing in it.
- Free survey, fixed written quote
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
Three roofs over dark rooms in Erith
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1 A pitched slope over a loft room A loft room in an older house loses headroom to the slope and gets light from, at best, one gable. A roof window in the rear slope lights the whole floor from overhead. -
2 The flat roof beside a dining area A flat-roofed garage or side extension next to a knocked-through dining room gives a ready surface for a rooflight, which sends daylight across the table. -
3 The tiled slope over the hall A hall with no outside wall can take light from a mirrored tube that threads through the loft from a clear cap on the slope.
A rebuilt riverside town and its older roofs
The street you live on may hold Victorian terraces and rebuilding-years houses side by side.
Erith's high street curves along the Thames, and three of the buildings on it are listed, among them the church and the Carnegie Building. The town also has the longest pier in London and a shoreline of salt marsh beside industrial land. Some of the original Victorian buildings were lost, though the White Hart in the High Street and St John's Church in West Street remain, and bomb damage together with a slow decline in local trade led to major redevelopment in the 1960s. Bexley Council treats Erith as a regeneration focus, and it is the borough's only population centre on the River Thames.
The result is that one road can hold older terraced houses beside homes put up in the rebuilding years. Victorian terraces are usually deep and narrow, with the stairs against a party wall and the rooms strung out behind one another. Houses from the postwar decades tend to have shallower roofs and plainer plans, and some carry a flat-roofed garage or porch at the side. Both kinds leave you with a room that sits a long way from any glass.
Loft terms in a roof-window job
- Rafter
- The sloping timber under the roof covering. A roof window is framed between trimmed rafters.
- Trimmer
- A short crosswise timber that frames the head or sill of the opening cut into the slope.
- Plane of the roof
- The surface of the slope itself. A roof window lies level with it, and a rooflight stands up on a kerb.
The room in the roof
A loft room is the clearest case for a roof window. The sloping ceiling takes away headroom near the eaves, a gable window if there is one lights a single end, and the middle of the floor stays dim in any weather. A roof window sits in the plane of the slope, so it lets in sky from straight overhead and gives you somewhere to stand up under. The light also reaches the sloping ceiling, which sends part of it back into the room. We usually look at the rear slope first, because the front faces the street and the rear is where a change is least visible. The rear slope looks onto gardens, so more of the sky above it is open.
What fits depends on the rafter spacing, since each cut rafter has to be trimmed around and carried on a new frame.
Escape matters too in a house with two storeys below the loft. A loft conversion there creates a storey more than 4.5 m above the ground, which normally means the stairs have to be the protected route down, and a roof window is not accepted as that escape. Anyone planning a conversion should read the Building Regulations guide before drawing anything.
Dormers, gables and the side slope
Some older houses already have a dormer or a gable window in the roof, and owners ask whether that is enough. A dormer lights the room it belongs to from the side, so the glass faces one direction and the far corner of the floor still waits for daylight. A dormer also gives the room extra headroom, which a roof window does not. A roof window beside or opposite it brings sky into that corner. Because the two openings face different ways, they also light the room at different times of the day. Where a slope forms a side elevation of the house, the rules for glazing on it are stricter, and the planning guide spells out each condition.
The hall under the loft
The hall below a loft room is another matter. It has a front door at one end, a staircase along one wall and nothing else to let light in, and a window above the door only helps the first metre or two. The top of the stairwell is the part with a clear line up to the roof.
The hall with no wall and the dining room in the plan
Hallways in terraced and semi-detached houses have doors on both sides and walls where daylight would otherwise come in. The stairs cut the picture further: a flight against a party wall leaves a well that is dark at the bottom at any hour, and an upstairs landing on the same run can be darker still. Daylight can only arrive from overhead, and the loft sits in its path. A shaft or a tube is the way past that loft, and either one is sized to the stair below it.
This is the job for a roof window over the stairs or a sun tunnel. A roof window works where a lined shaft can run straight from the slope down to the stairwell. A sun tunnel is a mirrored tube capped by a clear dome on the slope and finished with a ceiling diffuser, and it copes with the angle and distance a loft puts between roof and ceiling. Our sun tunnel page explains how the tubes are routed and what they can and cannot light.
Putting a roof window over the stairs
- Find the rafters We locate the rafters over the stairwell from the loft and mark where the opening can sit between them.
- Frame the opening Cut rafters are trimmed with new timbers, so the structure around the window carries what the old rafters carried.
- Seal the slope Flashings are fitted to suit the roof covering, so that water runs over the frame and not behind it.
- Line the reveals The splayed lining inside lets light spread down the stairs, and the Building Control notification is handled where the work is notifiable.
The dining room that borrows from its neighbours
Where a wall has been taken out so that a lounge and a dining room read as one long space, the plan changes. The window at the front lights the sitting end. The dining end, deep in the plan and far from the glass, depends on what leaks through. If a flat-roofed garage or side extension sits beside it, the roof of that structure is a ready-made place for a rooflight. A fixed or opening flat rooflight over a dining area casts light across the table and walls. An opening one also lets out cooking steam and warm air.
A garage that was converted into a dining room or playroom needs the same thing. The room has one door and perhaps a small window onto the drive, and the flat roof above is the only surface that can feed it. The same applies to a porch that has been closed in or a side return that has been roofed over. Our flat roof rooflight page covers the upstand a rooflight sits on and how that upstand is made watertight. A raised glass lantern is built up on a kerb, which usually takes it past the height Class C allows, so a lantern is a different conversation from a flat rooflight.
Listed and riverside buildings
If your own home is listed, a new or altered roof window will almost always need listed building consent. Homes elsewhere in the borough may be listed too, so we ask early. Conservation areas in Erith include Erith Riverside and Lesney Park Road, and our skylight planning guide explains how they bear on a rooflight.
Bexley, planning and your first message
Planning applications for an Erith address are decided by Bexley, the London borough, so a question about the outside of your house goes to its planning team. The council publishes its conservation and heritage information on its own site, at bexley.gov.uk, and we use it when we check your address.
Your first planning question is whether an application is needed, and the answer depends on how the building began life. A home made from a shop or an office through change-of-use permitted development comes without householder rights. If the same home arrived through a full planning application, the rights remain unless the permission carried a condition against them. The planning guide sets out the rules, and we match them to your roof once we are standing under it.
Planning words for an Erith address
- Article 4 direction
- A council order that takes certain permitted development rights away in a defined area.
- Listed building consent
- Separate consent for altering a listed building.
- Local planning authority
- The body that rules on planning applications for your address. For Erith that is Bexley.
- Conservation area
- A designated area of special character where the council has extra controls over some changes.
Getting here and getting started
Erith is a run of about 27 miles up from our Maidstone base. We also cover Bexleyheath and Bexley.
You pay nothing for the first visit, and no price is named until it is done. Then comes a fixed written quote, with the Building Control notification handled by us where the work is notifiable and a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing. Send a WhatsApp to 07880 284133 or an email to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk, naming the room that stays dark, and a photo helps us bring the right tape and ladder.
Dining ends, halls and lanterns in Erith
We have a knocked-through lounge and dining room, and the dining end is gloomy. What would you fit?
Over a neighbouring flat roof, such as a garage or side extension, a flat rooflight throws daylight across the table. With no flat roof beside the room, daylight has to come down through the loft by a roof window or sun tunnel instead. The roof decides which of these can go in.
We live in a conservation area in Erith. Are roof windows ruled out?
Permitted development rights for a roof window stay in place inside a conservation area unless an Article 4 direction applies, as the planning guide explains. Your own address is looked up at the visit.
What stops a loft conversion from using a roof window as its fire escape?
On a two-storey house, a loft conversion creates a storey more than 4.5 m above the ground, and the route down the stairs normally has to be protected. The height rule is laid out in the Building Regulations guide, and in that case the roof window is there for light and air.
Which suits a hall with no windows, a dome and tube or a window in the slope?
A window in the slope needs a lined shaft running straight down to the stairwell. A tube bends around the angle and the distance a loft puts in the way, which makes it the neater route where the loft is full. We fit either, and the stairwell and the loft decide. Both leave the stairs themselves untouched.
How do I know whether a lantern over my extension needs planning permission?
A lantern is raised well clear of the roof surface, so it usually sits outside Class C and needs an application unless Bexley confirms otherwise. The lantern planning guide goes through it.
Nearby towns to Erith
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