Skylights and rooflights in Hildenborough

The kitchen extension with a pitched roof

An extension does not always have a flat roof. Some carry the pitch of the house on over the new room, and a pitched roof opens a different set of choices. Roof windows set into the slope light the worktops directly. If the ceiling follows the rafters, the opening runs straight through to the underside of the slope and there is no flat ceiling to cut around.

The old kitchen window is the thing to plan around. Once the extension is built, it looks into the new room and no longer outdoors, so the daylight it gives is borrowed from the glass at the far end. Roof windows placed between that old opening and the new garden doors fill the gap between the two bright ends. On a kitchen that faces north or east, the extra light from above is what you notice on a short December afternoon.

Choosing between one large unit and two smaller ones depends on the rafter spacing and on where the worktops, hob and island will end up. Position matters because glare off a hob splashback is a different problem from shadow on a chopping board, and we ask where you stand to cook before we mark the roof. A kitchen cooked in mostly after dark and one where the table doubles as a desk want the glass in different places.

Reading the roof from the garden

Before any size is chosen, the slope is looked at from outside. We note which way it faces, how the tiles or slates are laid, whether the extension roof meets the main house in a valley or a flashing, and where the rafters run. A south-facing slope gives bright, warm light that a blind will sometimes need to tame. A north-facing one gives a steadier, cooler light all day, with no direct sun. The useful question is which kind of light you want over the cooker and which over the table.

Finishing the opening inside

The light well between the roof and the ceiling is part of the design. Squared off, it makes a dark tunnel; splayed outwards towards the room, it spreads daylight across the ceiling and down the walls. On a kitchen with a vaulted ceiling the well is short and the finish is simple. On a flat ceiling below a pitched roof the well can be deep, and we plaster and splay it so it blends with the ceiling around it. Paint waits until the plaster is fully dry, and pale surfaces around the opening are where the daylight lands first.

Pale paint on the splayed sides of the well bounces light on to the ceiling, which is why the colour of the shaft is chosen before decorating starts.

The landing nobody lights

On a two-storey house the staircase and the landing often sit at the centre of the plan, with a bedroom door each side and no outside wall within reach. The only daylight comes up the stairs from whatever window is at the bottom. Where the stairs rise towards a loft, a window in the roof directly over the stairwell can bring light a full storey down. Where the roof is further off, a sun tunnel runs from a small dome on the slope, through the loft, to a diffuser fixed in the ceiling above the stairs. Both leave the front of the house untouched.

Either choice is building work in a loft: the opening has to carry the load of any cut rafters, and the tunnel needs a clear route past the joists and any stored boxes or wiring. Our sun tunnel page sets out how the tunnel types differ.

Utility rooms are also where the colour of the light shows. A tunnel gives a white, even glow. A lantern in a garage conversion gives light that moves through the day, and the walls around it want a pale finish to carry it. Both can be fitted with the room in use, since much of the work happens on the roof.

The garage that became a room

Utility rooms often end up where a garage used to be. A converted garage keeps its original roof, which may be flat or low-pitched with little loft above, and it can keep a blank wall towards the street, which leaves the roof as the place for daylight. Either a flat rooflight or a lantern placed over a converted garage helps a deep room with a single aspect, whether it is now a utility, a study or a playroom. Height is the limit: the ceiling has to leave space for the kerb and the light well, so the distance from joists to roof surface is measured before a unit is priced.

In a converted garage the daylight tends to enter at one end only, so the far half stays dim. A rooflight or lantern over that far half balances the two ends, and its size follows the part of the room in use.

What the survey records

At the house we measure the room, photograph the ceiling and the roof above it, note which way the slope faces and look into the loft where there is one. On a flat roof we find out what the covering is and how deep the build-up runs, because that sets the height of the kerb. Those measurements go into the fixed quote, so the unit, its size and the finish inside are all written down before any work is booked.

Living in the house while it is done

The work happens on the roof, so the household carries on below. In a kitchen the worktops and units are covered before the opening is made, and the covering is cut and made watertight from outside first. Inside, dust sheets protect the floor under the opening, and the plastering of the light well comes after the glazed unit is in. A utility room is the shortest job of these; a landing with a tunnel needs a clear path to the hatch, so we ask you to empty the area beneath it.

Planning in Tonbridge and Malling

Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council decides planning applications for Hildenborough. On a house, a roof window can often go in without an application, and the planning guide for skylights sets out when. The one to watch is a lantern on a flat roof: its height normally takes it outside those rights, so permission is the starting assumption until the council writes to say otherwise.

Hildenborough's conservation areas include one named Hildenborough and one at Coldharbour, Hildenborough, and the conservation area rooflight planning guide covers what shifts when an application is required. The Victorian Mountains Country House, which Fosse Bank school occupies, is Grade II listed. A listed home follows the route in the guide to listed-building rooflights.

The Building Control notification is ours to handle where the work is notifiable.

Arranging the visit

Heading west from Maidstone, the village is about 16 road miles away, close enough for a free survey. The finished work is covered by our written 10-year workmanship guarantee. WhatsApp on 07880 284133 reaches us fastest; email to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk and the form on the page work as well. Tonbridge and Southborough are the nearest towns we cover.