Longfield skylights and rooflights
Longfield is a village in the Borough of Dartford with its own railway station. Whether the dark space is a stairwell, a loft room or the back of a kitchen extension, the roof can often carry daylight to it.
- Free survey, fixed written quote
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
Dim by four o'clock in December
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1 Winter mornings on the stairs A stairwell has no outside wall to hold a window. A roof opening over it sends daylight down every step. -
2 Late light in a loft room A room under the ridge with one small gable window fades as the afternoon closes in. Glass in the slope keeps it light longer. -
3 After tea in the extension A single-storey kitchen addition is bright near the garden doors and dim near the house. A rooflight over the join lights both.
Stairwells, slopes and old settlement
Where a house has no outside wall, the roof is the nearest sky.
Every house has a core that the outside walls do not reach, and the stairwell is usually it. The treads climb up the heart of the house, the landing hangs above, and there may be no window on either floor. A roof opening directly over the stairwell changes that, because daylight falls the full height of the flight and reaches the hall at the bottom as well.
Longfield is a village in the Borough of Dartford, and its railway station links it to London Victoria via Bromley South, to Ramsgate via Chatham and to Dover Priory via Chatham and Canterbury East. Leaving for a morning train and coming back after dark, you meet your own staircase mostly by artificial light.
Roof words for a stairwell job
- Roof window
- A window set flush with the roof slope that surrounds it.
- Rooflight
- A glazed unit set out of plane with the roof, on a kerb or upstand.
- Sun tunnel
- A tube that carries daylight from a small roof dome down to a ceiling diffuser.
- Reveal
- The lined sides of the opening, seen from inside.
- Flashing
- The weatherproof metalwork that seals a unit to the roof covering.
Reading the land under the roof
Ground heights around the village run from 45 m above sea level near the chalk pit west of Longfield to 92 m on the wide rise at New Barn. The village and its surroundings lie on land that tilts, and houses on tilting plots are often built with floor levels that step. A stepped plan makes an awkward stairwell: a half landing here, a short flight there, and a window that sits at the wrong height or is missing altogether. We survey those stairs from the bottom looking up, then from the landing looking at the ceiling, so we can see which part of the roof lies over the dark part of the plan.
Where a loft stands over the stairwell, light has to travel through it. A sun tunnel does that with a reflective tube running from a dome in the roof covering to a diffuser in the stairwell ceiling. Where the stair runs straight up to a landing under a sloping roof, a roof window can sit directly over it. Either lifts the landing and hall without a single new wall.
The landing and the hall
The upstairs landing is the other half of the problem. It usually sits between bedroom doors that are shut, and it has no window of its own. A roof opening above it makes the doors easier to find at 7 am in January. The hall below often shares the same dim air, since stairs open straight into it. When the stair and the hall form one tall space, a single opening over the stairwell works for both floors, and the finish inside, with splayed reveals, spreads the light along the ceiling.
We choose the position of the opening from the stairs themselves. A roof window set over the middle of the flight lights the treads, while one set towards the landing end lights the landing. Sometimes the answer is two smaller units, one over each, and we price that against a single larger one.
Old settlement, newer roofs
The name Longfield turns up as Langanfelda in the Saxon Charters of 964 to 995 and as Langafel in the Domesday Book of 1086. The church is dedicated to St Mary Magdalene and dates from 1343. We ask when your house was built, check what the roof covering is, and choose a product to suit it.
Some pockets of the parish are small groups of houses a way from the centre. The road towards London passes a row of cottages at Whitehill, and farmland lies at Pinden to the south. Rural cottages tend to have small windows in thick walls and steep roofs. Roofs like that take a roof window in the rafters, and the room underneath, however modest, becomes brighter than its original windows could make it.
A loft room that keeps its light
A loft room is the one place in the house where the roof is also the ceiling. The window it came with, if there is one, may be at the gable end and may be the only light for the whole floor. Glass in the slope adds a second source, and because it faces the sky the room fills with light at a steeper angle than a wall window can give.
A roof window that starts too low in the slope shows you gutters and neighbours' fences; one placed higher shows sky. We stand on the loft floor at the survey, sit where the bed or desk will be, and mark the glass position against your eye line before we settle on a size.
Myth
A roof window in the loft will brighten the stairs below it.
Fact
It lights the room it sits over. The landing and stairwell need an opening of their own, or a sun tunnel of their own.
Using the room you have
A loft that is used as a bedroom, a study or a place for a hobby has different needs for the glazing. A bedroom wants a blind, a head height that works beside the bed, and fresh air in summer. A study wants glass that clears the desk and a position where sun does not land on the screen. Before we propose a size, we note where the furniture will sit and where you will stand. The rafter spacing limits the size, so we also measure the structure before a unit is chosen.
The stairs matter too. On a two-storey house the route out of the loft goes down the stairs, and it is the stair that the rules look at when the loft is converted. What applies is in the Building Regulations guide. We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable.
Replacing glass in a loft that already has windows
If your loft already has a roof window in the slope, it may by now be draughty or misted. To replace it, we measure the opening, remove the old unit, fit a new one in the same position where the structure allows and finish the reveals. If the old unit is smaller than the opening could take, widening it usually means altering a rafter.
If you want a roof window that opens from a switch, the electric opening range suits a loft room where the window sits out of reach above a bed or a desk.
Light that stops at the loft door
A bright loft does not light the landing below it. The glass lights the room it sits over. The stairs and the first-floor landing need an opening of their own or a sun tunnel running through the roof void. We find that out at the survey and price the two openings together if you want both.
A flat roof over the new kitchen
A kitchen extension usually brings a flat roof with it. The new room is bright where the doors open onto the garden and dim near the house, where it joins the original rooms. A flat roof rooflight or a raised roof lantern placed over that join lights both rooms.
A lantern on a flat roof usually stands proud of the roof by more than the permitted development allowance, which means it normally needs planning permission. The reasons are laid out in our lantern planning article, and the wider planning permission guide covers rooflights in general. Dartford Borough Council is the authority for Longfield.
Choosing between a lantern and a flat rooflight
A flat rooflight is the low-profile choice, and it sits on an upstand with the glass close to horizontal. A lantern has glazed sides as well as a top, so it brings in light from several angles across the day and gives the room a ceiling with height. The decision depends on the room, the roof beneath and what the council says. We talk through both at the survey and price whichever you prefer.
Placing the glass over the join
The darkest strip in a kitchen extension is where the old external wall used to be. Garden doors light the far end of the room and the original windows, if any survive, light the near end. The band between them is the strip that benefits from overhead glass. The best position for a rooflight is therefore not the centre of the new roof but the line of the old wall, and its length can follow that line if the room is wide.
The joists decide how the opening is cut. If the joists run across the line we want, an opening has to be framed with trimmers, and the length of it is limited by what the structure can span. We check the direction, the depth and the condition of the joists from the loft or the room below, and a covering of felt, membrane or roofing board is lifted at a corner so we can see what lies under it.
Glass, frame and finishing
The glazing in a rooflight or lantern can be chosen to suit the room: a clear pane for brightness, a tinted or solar control pane for a south-facing extension, a self-cleaning coating where the roof is out of reach. Frames come in different finishes inside and out. The finish inside the room is part of the job as well.
Where we come from
Longfield is roughly 19 road miles from Maidstone, to the north-west. The village has links with Gravesend, Bluewater, Darenth and New Ash Green. The village has one pub, the Railway Tavern, which is handy as a landmark when you give directions.
The survey costs nothing, and the quote you get is fixed and written. A 10-year workmanship guarantee is given in writing when the work is done. Start with a WhatsApp message on 07880 284133, an email to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk or the quote form.
We work in the neighbouring villages as well: Bean, Istead Rise and South Darenth.
What changes the price of a flat roof opening
- Lantern or flat rooflightA lantern is a larger build than a low-profile unit.
- Roof structureJoist direction and spacing decide how the opening is framed.
- Glass specificationSolar control, self-cleaning and acoustic glass add to the unit.
- Finishing insideLining the opening and making good the ceiling around it.
Stairs, lofts and flat kitchen roofs
Which opening lights a stairwell with a loft over it?
A sun tunnel runs a tube through the loft void to a diffuser in the stairwell ceiling. If the stairs run up under a sloping roof, a roof window directly above them does the job, and we pick between the two at the survey.
Our house sits on a slope and the floors step. Does that change the roof work?
It changes the survey more than the fitting. Stepped floors mean stairs and landings sit at odd heights, so we measure from inside to find which part of the roof lies over the dark spot.
A lantern on our kitchen extension would stand well above the roof. What does that mean for planning?
A lantern on a flat roof usually stands proud by more than the permitted development limit, so it normally needs an application to Dartford Borough Council.
Does a Longfield survey cover Bean and South Darenth too?
Both are on our list. See Bean and South Darenth.
Nearby towns to Longfield
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.