Skylights and rooflights in Royal Tunbridge Wells

Loft rooms and their light

A room made from a loft has a simple lighting problem. The window at the gable end lights one end of the room, and along the slope the ceiling comes down to meet the floor. That is where a pair of roof windows gives a brighter ceiling and a view of the sky from the bed or the desk. The pitch is fixed by the house, so we settle the height of each sill on site, standing in the room at the height of a seated person and a standing one.

Which way the slope faces changes the result. A window on the sunny side fills the room early and warms it later in the day, and a shaded slope gives an even, cooler light. Glazing choices and blinds for the sunnier roofs are covered in the page on overheating. A unit that opens clears warm air from under the ceiling, and an electric opening rooflight is the tidy answer where the window sits beyond arm's reach.

After the war, large estates were built at Sherwood and Ramslye to house a growing population. Where an estate repeats one house type, a layout that works on one roof tells us something about the next, though we check every roof anyway, because extensions and earlier loft work change the details house by house.

One window or two is a matter of the room's width and where the rafters fall. Two units side by side suit a wide loft room and leave a rafter between them. A single larger unit suits a narrow room, where a second would crowd the ceiling. We work it out on site, with the furniture in mind, and the quote states the size of each unit so that you can see what is being fitted.

The back bedroom and the landing

A back bedroom is usually at the rear of the first floor, below the main slope or below a lower addition. If the addition has a flat roof, a small flat roof rooflight is the simplest answer. If the bedroom sits right under the pitch, a roof window in the slope does the work. On a plot where the garden rises behind the house, the view up to the sky is also the only view the room has that is not a wall of earth or hedge.

The landing rarely has a window of its own. Daylight comes in from whichever bedroom door has been left open, and the top of the stairs is dim for the rest of the day. A window over the stairwell can reach the landing and part of the flight below it; a sun tunnel serves where the roof void is too deep for a window to be practical. We take the measurement from inside the loft, where the rafters, the insulation and any pipes are all visible. In a house where the loft has been boarded as storage, the boards come up along the line of the planned route, and we put them back afterwards.

Cold-water tanks, hot-water cylinders and old cabling sometimes sit exactly where a unit would go, and where they do, they are moved before the opening is cut. That adds to the work, and it appears as a line on the quote.

Insulation between the rafters is cut back around the opening and made good against the frame. In a loft room that has been boarded and lined, the plasterboard is cut to the same opening and the reveals are formed to finish flush with the ceiling. We settle the angle of each reveal in the room. Roof windows used as a pair are set at the same height up the slope, so the sills and the heads line up when you look along the ceiling.

The valley setting has one more effect on the upstairs rooms. Where the ground falls away behind a house, a rear bedroom may have a long view over rooftops and trees, and a window in the slope can frame it. Where it rises, the room may see little but earth and hedge, and for that room the sky is the whole view. In both cases we decide the size and height of the unit by standing in the room and looking at what the existing windows show.

Sign-off on the work itself

Cutting into the rafters is building work, and the framing, the insulation and the glazing all have rules of their own. The Building Regulations guide goes through them, including how a room in the roof is treated for escape. We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable, and the completion certificate is yours to keep. A buyer's solicitor may ask for it years later, and keeping it with the deeds means it is easy to find.

On the A26 and beyond

The A26, which runs from Maidstone to Newhaven, links the two towns, and the A264 and A267 also meet in Tunbridge Wells. Heading south-west out of Maidstone, you reach a town that sits inside the radius we work in. Our survey comes without a charge.

After the survey, the written quote names the product, size, glazing, roof work and finish inside as a single fixed figure. On the day, the crew protects the stairs and landing, forms the opening from the roof side, fits and flashes the unit, and lines the reveals inside so that the room is ready to decorate. Your 10-year workmanship guarantee is a written document you keep with the house papers.

On a steep street or where parking is tight, a van or a skip may have to stand some distance from the door. Tell us about parking and the route to the back of the house when you book, and we will plan the carrying and the protection of floors around it. If scaffolding is needed for a high roof, that is priced on the quote with everything else. For a loft room, clearing the area under the planned openings the day before saves time on the morning, and we move any remaining furniture away from the work area before we begin.

Railway lines and local roads

Tunbridge Wells West station opened in 1866, closed in 1985 and is now a grade II listed restaurant, with a Sainsbury's supermarket on the old goods yard. The Spa Valley Railway runs steam trains from West station to Eridge by High Rocks and Groombridge. We reach a house by road, using the A26 from Maidstone.

Neighbours worth knowing

Southborough lies about a mile and a half north as the crow flies, Rusthall roughly a mile and two-thirds west and Pembury about two and a half miles east. We work in Southborough, Rusthall and Pembury as well, so a house on the edge of the borough is covered too.

WhatsApp reaches us on 07880 284133 and the email address is info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk. The quote form below does the same job. Tell us which room is the dim one, and whether the loft is already boarded or fitted out.