Rooflights and skylights for West Malling homes

What an old plan does to a landing

Houses from the Georgian period are often two rooms deep, with the staircase near the middle of the plan and a landing above it. That landing has bedrooms on either side and frequently no outside wall of its own, so its daylight is whatever slips through an open door. Older buildings were often altered room by room over the centuries, and an extension can leave a passage or stair with no outside wall anywhere near it. Where the loft above is empty, daylight can reach the landing through a roof window directly over the stairwell, or by way of a sun tunnel routed across the loft. The roof space makes the choice: how steep the slope is, how much headroom there is and how far the light has to travel.

The bathroom nobody planned

Houses of this age were built before anyone expected a bathroom indoors. When one was added, it went wherever there was space, and that was often the middle of the first floor or a corner under the roof. Such a room makes do with a small window or a fan. The roof above it is clear of neighbours and furniture, and a roof window that opens will ventilate as well as light the room. Where the loft is deep or the slope faces the wrong way, a sun tunnel does the lighting instead. A bathroom roof window is placed where the sash opens clear of the bath and the lining can be tiled or painted to match the room. The bathroom case has its own page, sun tunnels for bathrooms.

Above the ceiling of an older house

In an older roof the rafters may not be evenly spaced, and the timbers have often been altered or strengthened across the years. A roof window sized to the gap between two rafters needs far less structural work than one that cuts across several. We lift the hatch, measure the spacing and look at the condition of the timber before any size is chosen, and the quote reflects what we find. It also helps to know whether the loft has been boarded, whether it holds a water tank and where the stairs rise, because those three things shape the route the light can take.

Newer streets around the old core

The town has spread past its historic centre. One new parish here is a mixed residential housing estate and commercial development, formed from parts of West Malling, Mereworth, East Malling and Wateringbury. Estate houses tend to follow repeated plans, with a family bathroom and landing at the core and bedrooms to front and back, so the same rooms often turn out to be the dim ones from street to street. A back bedroom in the roof, with a low eaves line and a single small window, gets its daylight in one corner. Move the window up the slope and the light lands across the floor.

When the house itself is old

A listed house keeps its permitted development rights for a rooflight, yet a new or altered roof window in it will almost always need listed building consent. Listing is on the public record, and it is the first thing we ask about an older property. The Swan Hotel carries a Grade II listing and the abbey church, built in 1966, is listed Grade II*, so the town's listed buildings are a mix of ages. For how that consent works, read rooflights on listed buildings.

Conservation areas near the centre

There is a conservation area named West Malling close to the town centre, and others nearby. A house inside one keeps its Class C rights for a rooflight unless an Article 4 direction has taken them away, and our page on Article 4 directions and rooflights shows how to tell whether one applies. Should an application prove necessary, the choice of unit and which slope it goes on will matter more than where the boundary runs. At survey we look your address up in the council's records.

When the house is not listed

For a house that is neither listed nor subject to an Article 4 direction, the usual permitted development conditions for roof windows apply. They are written for houses in general, and the planning guide shows how they are read against your own roof.

Building Control for a roof opening

Cutting through rafters is building work in its own right. The structure round the gap, the energy performance of the glass and, in a loft room, fire and escape all get looked at, and the Building Regulations guide lists the checks. Where the work is notifiable we handle the Building Control notification, and the borough's building control team or a registered building control approver signs it off.

For an old house, a listing notice and any earlier planning approvals are useful to have to hand at the survey, along with the date of the last roof repair if you know it. A house that has been extended in stages often has several sets of paperwork, and we read them against what is on the roof today.

Starting with the room that bothers you

We begin at the landing, bathroom or bedroom you want brighter. Which way do the existing windows face? How far does their light travel before it gives out? From there we go up into the loft or onto the roof, and look at the covering, the rafter spacing and whatever sits in the roof space. A pitched tiled roof takes a roof window; where a deep loft sits between roof and ceiling, a sun tunnel does the job. A flat-roofed extension at the back takes a flat roof rooflight, fixed to an upstand that we build or check first, with the covering sealed to it before the ceiling below is lined.

The back bedroom in the roof

A bedroom under the slope asks for different checks. We note the headroom where the roof meets the wall, the height of the sill above the floor and the direction the slope faces, since a bedroom window that faces the afternoon sun wants a blind to match. The unit is usually positioned so the bed is not directly beneath it and the middle of the floor takes the light.

Fitting a roof window

In a pitched roof the work means opening the slope, forming the trimmers, setting the flashings and lining the reveal inside. We protect the stairs and floors before we start, and leave the opening ready for paint. A sun tunnel goes in faster, as the roof is pierced once and the tube runs through the loft.

Write to us on WhatsApp (07880 284133) by email (info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk), or through the quote form. The same visit is available in Larkfield, Kings Hill and Wateringbury.