Rooflights and skylights for Horsmonden homes

What the window can see

The light reaching a dining room depends on how much sky its window looks at. A window facing a neighbour's flank wall, a close-boarded fence or a mature hedge sees a thin slice of sky near the top of the frame. The glass can be large and clean, and the table still sits in dim light for much of the afternoon. Swapping the window for a bigger one does little, because the problem is what stands outside it.

A roof opening sees something else altogether. A rooflight looks straight up past the fence and the hedge, so the light falling through it reaches the floor of the room. It is a different kind of light, and in a room where people sit for a long time it is a pleasant one.

When the dining room has a roof of its own

A rooflight needs a roof directly over the room. In a bungalow that is simple, and so it is in a single-storey wing, a former outbuilding made into a living room, or a one-storey addition. If a bedroom sits over the dining room, the roof is too far away, and a sun tunnel only suits a smaller, quieter space such as a hall or a cloakroom.

Over a pitched roof, we usually look first at a roof window flush with the tiles. A roof window gives the light a direction, and whether it goes over the table or just beside it is settled with you in the room, with the furniture where it will stay. Over a flat roof, a flat rooflight or a small roof lantern does the same job. Lanterns normally need an application, since they usually stand more than 150 mm proud of the roof; the lantern planning guide gives the reasoning.

Glass choice follows the room. A dining room used in the evenings wants a unit that holds its warmth after dark, and the thermal limit for a rooflight or lantern in an existing house sets the floor on that. Above a table, we also look at how the ceiling reveals will be finished, since the splay of the lining decides how far the light spreads across the room.

Colour and glare are easier in a dining room than in a kitchen. People are seated, the light is wanted at the table, and a shade or a blind handles a bright afternoon. If the rooflight faces south, we talk about glazing choices at the survey, and our guide to whether rooflights overheat a room goes through what affects the temperature under the glass.

You can test the idea yourself. Stand at the table at the hour you usually eat, look towards the window, and note how much sky you can see from there. That tells you what the glass has to work with, and it is our opening question when we visit.

Where the dining room is open to the kitchen, the rooflight can sit on the line between the two, so cooking and eating share the same daylight.

Light down the stairwell

If the staircase climbs to a landing beneath a sloping roof, a roof window in that slope can send light all the way down the well. The opening sits above the stairs themselves, so it lights each tread, and it brightens the hall below because the well is open. We confirm the position against the rafters from the loft, and we check the head height on the stairs before the frame goes in.

A roof window over a landing also changes the temperature at the top of the house. A unit that opens can let warm air leave the stairwell in summer. A pole-operated window suits a landing you can reach, and an electric opening rooflight suits one you cannot.

The sun tunnel route

Where the hall has loft space overhead, a sun tunnel is often the neat answer. A small dome on the roof collects daylight, a tube with a reflective lining carries it across the attic, and a diffuser at the ceiling spreads it into the hall. The route matters: the tube has to pass around rafters, water tanks, wiring and insulation. We trace the run at survey and tell you if a straight line is possible. The two kinds of tube, stiff and bendy, are compared on our sun tunnel types page.

On the landing and in the hall the finish matters too. A tunnel's ceiling panel can sit above a staircase, over a coat cupboard or beside a light fitting, and we mark the exact spot with a pencil on the ceiling, then check it from the loft before cutting. If a joist or a pipe lies under the chosen spot, we move the panel a few centimetres and tell you.

A sun tunnel suits a hallway, a cloakroom or a landing too narrow for a roof window. It does not open and it gives no view. What it gives is a modest amount of daylight in a small space that had none.

Reaching Horsmonden

When the branch line to Hawkhurst was running, the village had a station of its own. It closed in 1961, the site is now Old Station Garage, and the stationmaster's house is a private residence.

Choosing by the roof above

The roof over an extension decides what goes on it, and each type of roof raises its own checks at the survey.

Planning in the borough of Tunbridge Wells

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council handles planning for Horsmonden. Consent for a rooflight on your house turns on a set of conditions, which are laid out in the planning guide and checked against your actual roof when we visit.

For a kitchen extension the useful questions are practical ones. How far does the new roof stand above the old wall line? Does the extension adjoin a neighbour's wall? Is there a parapet or a gutter in the way of an upstand? Each answer rules one product in or out.

One question arises when a house has had a previous life. A house formed out of another building, such as a barn, an office or a shop, may have lost its householder permitted development rights. That is the case when the change was made under change-of-use permitted development. Where the change of use was granted by a full planning permission, the householder rights normally stay with the house, barring a condition that withdrew them. We ask how the house came to be a house, and the guide explains the difference.

Building Regulations run alongside. The Building Regulations treat a hole in a roof as building work, and they cover the structure, how well the glazing keeps heat in and, where relevant, fire and escape. We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable.

Getting a survey

A free survey comes first, and the price that follows is fixed and set out in writing, with a 10-year workmanship guarantee at the end. Send the kitchen layout and a photo of the ceiling to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk, or WhatsApp 07880 284133. The quote form on this site works as well. We also cover Marden, Paddock Wood and Five Oak Green.