Hextable skylights and rooflights
Hextable is a village that came late to Kent's map of houses: Victorian streets from the 1870s, then big detached family houses from two developments put up between 1990 and 2009. Each period leaves a different room short of daylight, and the roof above it is usually the easiest way back to the sky.
- Free survey, fixed written quote
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
From the late Victorian streets to the 1990s developments
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1 Tall Victorian plans, blind landings Houses from the decades after 1870 are often tall for their width, with the stairs against a side wall. The landing between front and back bedrooms then has no outside wall and no window. -
2 A run of houses laid out together Emersons Avenue was built on the old recreation ground known as The Rec. Where a street is planned in one go, neighbours often share a floor plan, and with it the same dim spot in the same place. -
3 Big detached houses, inner rooms The four- and five-bedroom detached houses of the 1990s and 2000s often carry a utility room and a back bedroom well away from any generous window. Both can take light from the roof.
Streets that grew after the farm sale
A village with a recorded start date tells you what its first houses were built to do.
Hextable has a short history as a place with houses. Before Hextable Farm was sold off in 1870, only three houses stood on the land the village now covers, so the village you see grew up from that sale onwards. The late Victorian streets are the oldest layer, and the plans of those houses decide where the daylight falls inside them.
| Built | Room that loses out | Roof route to look at |
|---|---|---|
| Late Victorian house | Landing between front and back bedrooms | Roof window on the back slope, or a tube down from the loft |
| House on a street laid out in one scheme | Back room behind a later kitchen extension | Flat rooflight over the extension, close to the old wall line |
| 1990s or 2000s detached house | Utility room or inner bedroom | Fixed rooflight, roof window or tube, by roof type |
The landing nobody can see into
Houses of that age are often tall for their width. The stairs rise against one side wall, and at the top a landing runs between the front bedroom and the back bedroom. That landing sits between walls on both sides and has no outside wall to take a window. Light arrives only when a bedroom door is open, or from the stairwell below, which is dark in its turn.
If the loft is only used for storage, a window set low in the back slope can put a patch of daylight right where the stairs turn. Where the loft is too low or too full for a window frame, a sun tunnel is the alternative, and it needs far less of the ceiling opened up. Whichever suits, the first measurement is the height of the loft floor above the landing ceiling, because that run decides how the light travels down. The opening is lined down to the landing ceiling so the light has a clean path, and the lining is finished ready for decorating.
Emersons Avenue and its neighbours
Emersons Avenue was built on The Rec, an old recreation ground left by a resident in Victorian times for the use of the village children. A street laid out in a single scheme tends to give neighbours the same plan, so a dim landing in one house often means the same in its neighbours. The roofs can still differ from door to door: pitch, covering, rafter spacing and whatever a past owner did in the loft all vary, so each roof gets its own survey and its own measurements.
Rear additions change the picture further. A single-storey kitchen added behind a Victorian house will often cover a window that used to light the back room. When that happens, the room behind the kitchen lives off borrowed light through an open doorway. A flat rooflight on the new roof, set close by the old back wall, sends daylight into both rooms at once.
Upstairs at the back
A Victorian roof also carries its own age. Rafters of that era may sit at their own spacing, and the timber around a new opening is trimmed to suit what is there, so the frame size we propose follows the roof as built.
The back bedroom of a house like this can be dim for a different reason. Where a two-storey extension has been added, or a neighbour's wall stands close to the rear window, the room is lit from one narrow opening. A roof window needs a roof above the room, so it suits a bedroom that already sits under the slope, and it will not help a bedroom with another floor over it. We look at which rooms have roof directly overhead before we suggest anything.
The detached houses of the 1990s and 2000s
Two developments of detached four- and five-bedroom houses went up in the village between 1990 and 2009. Houses of that size are often planned differently from a Victorian terrace: wide, with rooms set off a central hall, and with more floor area than daylight to go round it.
| Room | Why daylight is short | What we check overhead |
|---|---|---|
| Utility room | Shares walls with the garage or the neighbouring room | Whether the roof is flat or pitched, and what the loft holds |
| Back bedroom in the roof | A single gable window lights one end only | Rafter spacing, slope direction, headroom at the opening |
| Landing | Sits at the centre of the first floor, away from outside walls | Route for a window or tube down to the ceiling |
A utility room with no view
On a large detached plan, the utility room tends to sit between the kitchen and the garage or a side wall. Often that puts it against a boundary or another room, and a door to the garden is the only opening. If the utility wing has a flat roof, a fixed rooflight over it lights a room that otherwise runs on a ceiling lamp all day. If the wing sits under the main pitched roof, a roof window becomes possible where the loft above it is clear, and a tube down from the roof is the alternative where it is not.
Both are ordinary jobs. The work that matters is the survey, because it shows what the roof construction around the opening will allow. A utility room is also a damp room, with a washing machine and a dryer running in it, so ventilation matters as much as light, and an opening unit is worth discussing at survey. Extraction matters here too: a vented tumble dryer exhausts through a wall or a duct, and where that route runs can affect where the roof opening sits.
The back bedroom in the roof
A fifth bedroom in the roof space of a house this size may rely on one gable window, so it is bright at one end and shaded at the other. A roof window in the opposite slope brings light into the shaded end, and the bed gets a view of sky.
A bedroom in the roof has escape and energy questions too. Our Building Regulations guide covers the escape route from an attic room above two floors and the thermal limit a new roof window has to meet. Where a roof window is to serve as an escape window, as it can for a bedroom within the roof space of a bungalow or chalet bungalow, the size of the opening and its height above the floor both matter, so we measure the room and the existing rafters before a frame size is chosen.
Choosing between a window and a fixed unit
A hinged or pivoting roof window can be opened to air a bedroom or clear steam from a utility room. A fixed rooflight stays shut, but it suits a flat roof over a wing where the glass only has to deliver light. In a utility, where the machines run and washing dries, the ability to open is worth weighing against the extra cost. We put both on the quote when the choice is open, and you decide with the figures in front of you.
Reaching the roof
Detached houses usually give access on at least one side, which makes scaffold and deliveries simpler than on a terrace. The things we note instead are a conservatory or extension roof that sits below the work, a long drive to carry glass along, and a garage roof that has to be crossed. A conservatory roof cannot be walked on, so the route over it is planned before the day.
From Maidstone to Hextable, and who signs off
Hextable lies north-west of Maidstone, 22 miles by road. Swanley and Joyden's Wood are the closest neighbours, and we cover Swanley and Joyden's Wood in the same way.
What happens after your message
- Tell us the room Landing, utility room or back bedroom: we ask which one and which way its windows face.
- Measure on site We check the roof covering, the rafters, the loft and the way up to the roof.
- Priced in writing Product, glazing, roof work and finish inside, priced together.
- Fit, finish, hand over The opening is formed, the unit set, the reveals finished and the paperwork given to you.
Planning in Sevenoaks District
Applications for Hextable go to Sevenoaks District Council. A rooflight on a house can often go in without one, but that depends on the type of house you own and its record, which the skylight planning guide explains. Your address gets checked against it on the day we visit.
On the day, scaffold, glass and a skip all have to stand somewhere, so we agree with you beforehand where each goes and keep the drive and the pavement clear.
The survey, the quote and the paperwork
The survey costs you nothing and comes before any price. A fixed quote in writing follows, itemised down to the finish on the ceiling. We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable, and the 10-year workmanship guarantee comes to you on paper at handover.
Message us on WhatsApp, 07880 284133, and attach a snap of the gloomy room if you have taken one. Email info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk works too, as does the quote form.
Landings, utility rooms and 1990s houses
What can bring daylight into a utility room with no window in a Hextable house?
A fixed rooflight over a flat utility roof, a roof window where the room sits under a pitched slope and the loft is clear, or a tube from the roof if the loft has no spare run. The roof above the room settles which one fits, so that is where the survey starts.
Is a roof window in a loft bedroom treated differently from one on a landing?
A bedroom in the roof brings in escape and headroom questions that a landing does not. Where the room is in the roof of a two-storey house, the escape route is normally down the stairs, and the window is not accepted as the way out. The Building Regulations guide goes through it.
A house down our road has a roof window. Does that mean we need no permission either?
Not necessarily, because the answer depends on each house: its type, how far the unit stands out from the original roof, and whether a condition on its planning permission took rights away. Sevenoaks District Council is the authority to ask, and the planning guide lists what to check.
The landing in our Victorian house stays dark all day. Is a sun tunnel enough?
A sun tunnel gives a steady spot of light and suits a narrow landing with a clear run through the loft. A window in the back slope gives a wider spread and a view of the sky. Your own roof decides between them.
Nearby towns to Hextable
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.