Queenborough skylights and rooflights

The stair with no window

Older houses in a town like this are often one room wide at the front and several rooms deep, with the staircase running up a party wall or through the middle. The landing at the top has no outside wall of its own. It borrows light from whichever bedroom door is open, and on a winter afternoon it is dim even with every door wide. A roof window set in the rear slope, with a shaft lined through the loft, drops a column of daylight onto the stairs. If the loft is cramped, or the slope is a long way from the stair, a tube with a reflective lining gets light across the same gap in less space. Our guide to rigid and flexible sun tunnels compares the two kinds.

The shaft itself is plasterboard, painted white, and it is splayed at the top and bottom so that light spreads into the stairwell instead of landing as a hard spot. The opening is framed between the rafters, and anything stored in the loft has to move for a day. Before we price it, we climb up and measure where the shaft will come out above the stairs, because a few inches either way changes whether it lights the treads or the wall. A narrow staircase with doors at both ends gains the most, because the light lands on the treads and on the landing walls together.

What happens in the loft

Loft insulation between the ceiling joists is moved aside around the opening and laid back against the shaft. The shaft walls are insulated where they pass through the cold space, so the light well does not turn into a cold spot over your stairs. Water tanks, cable runs and boxed-up belongings are worked around, and we tell you at survey what needs shifting beforehand. A loft that has been boarded for storage can need a few boards lifted.

The utility room that is really a cupboard

The ground floor has its own pocket of gloom. A utility room, a boot room or a downstairs cloakroom is typically fitted in against a neighbour's wall or tucked behind the kitchen, and its one window looks onto a narrow passage. In a single-storey rear addition, that room sits under a flat roof, and a flat roof is the easiest place in a house to bring light down. A small flat rooflight over a utility room gives it daylight. Where it sits under a pitched roof, we look at the loft and decide between a roof window and a tube.

A utility room is also a damp one, with a washing machine, a dryer or a drying rack running much of the week. A rooflight that opens lets that moisture out through the top of the room. Units that open from a wall switch or a remote suit a ceiling you cannot reach, and they are listed under electric opening rooflights. The flat roof rooflights page lists the options for the single-storey case, and the roof windows page covers the slope.

Building the roof around the glass

Garden rooms tend to be roofed with a timber deck on joists and a membrane laid over it. We open it, frame the hole so the cut joists are supported, and build an upstand around the opening to lift the glass clear of standing water. The covering is dressed up the upstand and lapped under the rooflight's flange so water runs away from the joint. Wiring is worth settling early: if the unit opens by motor, a supply has to reach the ceiling, and the cable route is best planned before any lining goes up. Insulation sits in the deck or above it, and the rooflight is chosen to match, because a cold patch of glass in a warm room is where condensation collects.

Where the room sits near tidal water, we check which frame finish and fixings suit an exposed estuary site and how the covering is lapped into the upstand to cope with driven rain. Glass is the other choice. A solar-control coating takes the heat out of low sun, and a blind fitted to the unit gives control on the brightest days. You can see the principle in our guide on energy-efficient rooflights.

Light through the day

Which way the rooflight faces changes how the room feels. A unit on a south-facing roof gives strong sun for much of the day, which suits a hobby room or a plant corner and calls for a blind or coated glass at a desk. A north-facing unit gives a cooler, even light that is kind to a screen. East gives an early bright start and west a warm late afternoon. We stand in the room at survey and work out which of those your day wants.

The Queenborough conservation area

The town includes a conservation area. Being inside it does not, on its own, remove the permitted development rights for a rooflight on a house; only an Article 4 direction does. Where an application is needed, the unit and its position are what the council looks at, which favours a flush, slim-framed conservation rooflight. The page on conservation area rooflights shows what that involves, and at survey we look up whether your street lies inside the boundary.

Ordering and the day itself

Once the quote is agreed, the unit is ordered to the size measured at survey. A garden room can be done in a day, as the opening is small and the roof is simple. A stairwell shaft takes longer, because the lining and the decorating inside follow the roof work. On the day we lay dust sheets from the door to the work area.

Inside, the finishing follows a set order: the shaft or reveals are lined and plastered once the unit is in, the plaster is left to dry, and you paint when it has. A white or pale finish round the opening carries the daylight further into the room.

Who decides what

Planning in Queenborough sits with Swale Borough Council, and the skylight planning guide covers whether an application is needed. The building work is checked under the Building Regulations. A free survey comes first, then a fixed written quote, and we handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable. The job carries our 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing.

Our surveys also reach Sheerness, Halfway Houses and Iwade. WhatsApp 07880 284133 or the quote form will book you a survey.