Skylights and rooflights in Rainham, Kent
Rainham runs from the North Downs dip slope down to the Medway, with Victorian railway growth, a 1960s and 1970s estate and converted oast houses along the way. The rooms that need daylight from above are the same in each: the hall, the stairwell and the room in the roof.
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Three roofs that can light a Rainham house
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1 A pitched slope above the landing On a house of the 1960s or 1970s, the landing often has no window of its own. Where the loft is untouched, a window in the slope can drop daylight down the stairwell. -
2 A tube through the loft to the hall A hall under a two-storey roof cannot see the sky. A sun tunnel runs from a dome in the slope to the hall ceiling, passing through the loft. -
3 The steep roof of a converted oast A house made from an oast has an unusual roof, and a loft room in it needs a unit matched to that pitch and covering.
From the dip slope to the creek
Houses from several waves of building can have halls short of daylight.
Rainham slopes down from a rise of the North Downs, about 125 m above sea level, to a frontage on the natural harbour of the River Medway. It was once a separate village. Gillingham absorbed it in 1929, and it became part of the Medway unitary authority in 1998. The railway came in 1858 and brought an almost immediate increase in the size of the village; when the Chatham Main Line was electrified in 1959, growth began again. Streets therefore went down in more than one burst, and a single road can hold houses of quite different ages.
Houses built in a railway-led surge of the Victorian years are often terraces or semis with a narrow hall running from the front door to the stairs. Houses laid out after electrification tend to be wider and shallower, and the hall tends to land mid-plan. Whichever you own, the hallway is the room that gets least from the outside. It has a door at one end, perhaps a small pane of glass beside it, and a staircase that blocks what little light the door lets in.
A sun tunnel from roof to hall ceiling
- Choose the route In the loft we trace a path for the tube that clears the rafters and any wiring.
- Open the slope A small opening is cut, the dome is fitted on its base, and flashing is set to suit the roof covering.
- Run the tube Rigid or flexible tube is cut to length and taped through the loft, with insulation kept around it.
- Fit the diffuser The ceiling fitting goes in last, and the hall gets its daylight.
Why a hall stays dim
Daylight arrives through outside walls, and the hall owns none. In a semi, one side is the party wall, the other side is the lounge or dining room, and the far end is the kitchen door. A roof window has little chance of reaching a ground-floor hall under a two-storey house, because the loft and the bedrooms sit in the way. What does work is a sun tunnel: a reflective tube that runs from a dome on the slope, past the rafters and the bedroom ceilings, to a diffuser at the hall ceiling. The tube turns to follow the loft, so it does not need a straight drop. Where the hall is long, a second tunnel at the far end evens out the light, and each dome on the roof is small.
Our rigid and flexible sun tunnel guide sets out the two tube types and what each does to the light that reaches the hall. The length of the run, the bends and the width of the tube decide how much daylight arrives, and we confirm those in the loft with a tape before quoting.
A hall on a bungalow or chalet bungalow is simpler. With only a roof between hall and sky, a roof window or a short tunnel can be fitted straight over the corridor, and a roof window in a bungalow or chalet can double as an escape window for rooms in the roof if the opening and sill height meet the rules. Our Building Regulations guide lists the sizes.
Park Wood and the landing without a window
South of the town centre, the Park Wood estate was built mainly during the 1960s and 1970s. Houses of those decades often have a simple pitched roof over a rectangular plan. The stairs sit at the heart of that plan, and the landing at the top has no window of its own, because both side walls are shared or face a bedroom. The M2 runs along the southern edge of the town, two miles from the centre.
On a landing, light has to travel a long way to reach the floor. A landing is a corridor, and you notice it most in winter evenings when the bedroom doors are shut. A roof window over the stairwell sends daylight down the whole drop, so the hall below gets a share as well. That works where the loft has not been boarded out for a conversion; where it has, a sun tunnel can be the simpler route. A landing window also helps in the morning, when the household moves between bedrooms and bathroom with the doors closed and nothing but borrowed light.
The structure behind the plasterboard
Before anything is priced we go into the loft and look at how the roof is built. A roof made of rafters can take an opening framed between two of them. A roof assembled from trusses or heavily loaded with a water tank is a different job, and the framing has to be worked out with that in mind. The same visit shows the insulation, the wiring that crosses the route and the position of the chimney breast. A landing window sits better a little to one side of the stairwell centreline when a flue or a tank is in the way, and that is easier to decide standing in the loft than from the landing below.
Roof window or lantern over the stairs
A lantern is a rooflight raised on a kerb, and it sits on a flat roof. For a plain pitched roof over an unconverted loft, a roof window in the slope is lighter work and sits flush with the tiles. The Building Regulations treat the two differently on energy: a new or replacement roof window takes the window limit of 1.4 W/m²K, while a rooflight or lantern takes 2.2 W/m²K. Our Part L and rooflights guide explains what those numbers mean for glass specification.
Cost is where a stairwell job differs from a bedroom one. The tiles, the rafter spacing and the height of the landing ceiling each change the labour, and the scaffold may be needed on a taller house.
What a landing roof window quote turns on
- Roof coveringTiles, slates and other coverings each need their own flashing kit and labour.
- Size of the openingA wider unit means more rafters to cut and trim.
- Height of the landingA tall stairwell can need extra access or a scaffold.
- Glass specificationEnergy performance and the glazing type change the unit price.
- Internal liningA splayed reveal and plastering add work inside.
Oast conversions, listed houses and Medway
Rainham is home to the first oast house theatre, where the Rainham Theatrical Society puts on regular performances, and the Oast Community Centre is another oast house given a new purpose. Turning a building like that into a home brings a question about rights. Where the conversion used change-of-use permitted development, the householder rights an ordinary house enjoys are gone. Where it went through full planning permission, those rights survive unless a condition on the permission removed them. The decision notice for your own house answers it, and we ask to see that notice before discussing a rooflight.
A loft room in a converted building may sit in a round roof or a very steep one. Oast roofs have their own pitch, structure and covering, and a roof window or rooflight has to be matched to them, so we measure those carefully before ordering.
Myth
A converted oast house has the same rooflight rights as any other house.
Fact
That turns on the route taken. Houses made through change-of-use permitted development have no householder rights; those made by full planning permission still hold them, unless a condition on the permission took them out.
A room in the roof of an oast, with walls that lean in and a floor that may be small, gains from a window set low enough to see out of while sitting on the bed. In a round or steep roof the opening is set out from the structure itself, and the flashing is cut to suit the covering.
A loft room in an ordinary house is easier to describe. The roof slopes to the floor near the walls, so the usable part is the strip down the middle, and a roof window above that strip lights exactly the area you walk on. One window tends to leave the far end in shade, while a pair, spaced along the same slope, covers the room evenly. Which slope the window goes in matters for planning, a point the planning guide deals with condition by condition.
Listed houses, a conservation area and the council
The manor house in Rainham, once home to members of the Mackay family, is now Grade II listed. A listed house will almost always need listed building consent for a new or altered roof window. Rainham has conservation areas, among them one named Rainham, and living in a conservation area does not by itself take Class C rights away; an Article 4 direction does. Medway Council takes the applications here, and the planning guide is the place to check the rules for a house.
Getting to you
The road from Maidstone to Rainham covers about 13 miles. The A2 through the town follows the ancient Watling Street between London and Canterbury, and National Cycle Route 1 runs through it. Upchurch and Gillingham are next door, and we cover both.
The survey comes free, and the quote after it is written down and fixed. Where the work is notifiable, the Building Control notification is ours to handle. Our WhatsApp is 07880 284133 and our email is info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk; a picture of the gloomiest room helps.
Halls, landings and old oasts
What does a sun tunnel do for a hall that has no window at all?
A dome on the slope gathers daylight and a reflective tube carries it down to a ceiling fitting in the hall, passing through the loft on the way.
Our Park Wood landing is dark all day. Which is better, a roof window or a tunnel?
With an unboarded loft above, a roof window in the slope lights the whole stairwell. If the loft is boarded out, a sun tunnel can be the simpler route.
Our house was an oast once. What goes into the roof of a room in it?
Oast roofs have a pitch and covering of their own, so a unit is matched to them. Planning depends on how the building became a house, which the planning guide explains. The decision notice for the conversion tells you which route it took.
Which council decides planning for rooflights in Rainham?
Medway Council is the local planning authority. Rainham became part of the Medway unitary authority in 1998.
What happens on the day of the survey in Rainham?
We look at the dark room, measure the roof and work out which product suits.
What happens when a stairwell rooflight meets a loft that was converted years ago?
A converted loft has insulation, plasterboard and often a boarded floor in the way of a straight drop. We route a sun tunnel around that, or fit a roof window into the conversion's own slope. The survey shows which of the two suits the ceiling, the boarding and the pitch above.
Nearby towns to Rainham, Kent
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