Skylights and rooflights in Northfleet

The back bedroom and the bathroom

In a narrow terrace, the back bedroom often sits over the back addition, below the main roof. Its window faces a boundary fence or the flank wall next door, so the light it gets is thin and low. If the roof above has room for it, a roof window in that lower slope gives the bedroom a view of sky and puts daylight on the ceiling and walls. On a house with a pitched back addition the options are wider; on one with a flat roof the answer might be a flat roof rooflight.

In a terrace the roof is shared along the row, so the slope above a back bedroom is a long face of tiles. A roof window there sits between two rafters, and the flashing is cut to the tile course around it. The rear slope is usually out of sight from the street, which keeps the front elevation as it is. Where the back addition has a flat roof, the first thing we look at is the direction of the joists, because the opening is formed between them.

The bathroom is a different problem. Plumbing tends to cluster in the centre of a plan, so a bathroom often has an obscured window on a side wall, or none at all. A sun tunnel in a bathroom is a tube lined with mirror finish that carries daylight down through the roof space from a dome outside to the ceiling below. It suits a small room under a pitched roof where a full window would be out of scale, and the diffuser can sit over the bath, the basin or the door.

Moisture is the other thing a bathroom brings to the choice. A unit over a room with a bath or shower sits in damp air every day, so the lining of the opening, the seal around the unit and the finish on the ceiling all get specified for that. The survey is where we decide what the room needs, including whether the room already has a fan and where it ducts.

The landing

Fitting daylight to the landing helps every other room upstairs, because it is the space everyone passes through. A roof window above the stairwell, set into the slope on the rear of the house, drops light down the top of the flight. The pitch and rafter layout decide the size we can use. Where the roof void is deep or the stair is awkward, a tunnel is the tidier route. Either way, we mark the position from underneath, standing on the landing, and tape the outline on the ceiling so you see where the glow will fall.

The top of a stair gets its light low and from the side. With glass overhead the light arrives from above, so the banister, the wall beside the flight and the steps below all pick some of it up.

Ebbsfleet International railway station on the High Speed 1 line is less than a mile from the town, and Northfleet has its own station on the North Kent Line. Anyone commuting from either station sees their own house early and late, which is when a bright landing, bathroom and back bedroom matter. A tunnel or window that brings in the grey light of a winter morning, before the electric light goes on, is judged at those hours and not at midday, and we think about the room that way when we plan the position.

One last feature of the area is the Blue Lake, a former chalk pit now under water between the A226 and the railway. It is a reminder that chalk workings shaped the ground here. Our concern is the roof and the rooms below it, and at the survey we look at what is above and around the house, the covering, the structure and the access, before any product is chosen.

Whichever room you start with, a loft hatch matters. If we can get up into the roof space, we can see the rafters, the insulation, any water tank and the route a tunnel would take, which turns a rough idea into a firm plan. If there is no hatch, say so when you book, and we will plan to find another way to see the structure.

Conservation areas near the town

Conservation areas close to the town include the Hill, Northfleet Conservation Area and the Lansdowne Square, Northfleet Conservation Area. A house inside a conservation area still has the permitted development rights it would have elsewhere unless an Article 4 direction has removed them, and our conservation area rooflight guide explains the difference. These are not the only places in the district with a designation, and the boundaries are drawn on the council's own maps, so your address gets checked there at the survey.

If the work needs an application, the choice of unit matters more than usual: how flat it sits to the roof and which slope it is on both carry weight. We discuss those options when we see the roof, and put the preferred one in writing on the quote with the position marked.

Planning is only part of the paperwork. Cutting through rafters or joists also brings Building Regulations into play, covering the framing round the opening and how well the glazing holds heat in, and our Building Regulations guide goes into the detail. Terraced roofs share party walls with neighbours, so we also look at where the opening sits relative to the boundary and the chimney breasts, and plan the work so that the neighbours' side stays untouched.

Getting from Maidstone to Northfleet

A survey in Northfleet is free. Afterwards you receive a quote in writing with a fixed figure, and the finished job carries our 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing.

We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable, and the completion certificate comes to you once it is signed off.

Next door and nearby

Swanscombe is about a mile and a quarter west of Northfleet as the crow flies, Gravesend about a mile and a half east and Ebbsfleet Valley a little under two miles to the west. We cover Swanscombe, Gravesend and Ebbsfleet Valley as well, so a road or a neighbour's house nearby is no obstacle to booking.

To start, the quote form is the quickest way in; WhatsApp on 07880 284133 and info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk reach us too. A line about which room is the dim one, whether the loft is boarded and how you get on to the roof, from a ladder or from inside, gets the visit planned properly and tells us which ladders, tools and sheeting to bring, so the visit answers your questions on the spot.