Shelf skylights and rooflights for stone cottages on the hill

Under a lean-to slope

A sloping roof takes a roof window set between the rafters. The slope is usually shallow, so the frame sits at a low angle and the light falls across the room. Because the roof is low, the window is easy to reach for cleaning and opening from inside.

Under a flat roof

On a flat-roofed extension, a flat rooflight sits on an upstand dressed in the same covering as the roof, whether the roof is felted, rubber-sheeted or laid in fibreglass. Where the room is wide and the ceiling has height, a roof lantern is the larger gesture.

Tying the new glass to the old stone

The roof around a stone cottage meets a stone wall, and the join between roof covering and wall is a weak point on any house. When we cut an opening near that join, we look at the flashing along the wall first, because a roof that already lets water in at the abutment will not be improved by a new hole close to it.

Fitting day in the kitchen

The worktops are covered and the floor sheeted, the roof is opened over the room, the frame is set and weathered, the reveal is plastered inside. By evening the roof is closed against the weather, even if the finishing inside carries on.

A window that opens in a low kitchen

Under a lean-to the glass is within reach, so a roof window that opens gives the room fresh air and lets cooking steam out. On a steeper pitch a top-hung unit leaves the head clear, and over a worktop it avoids a sash swinging into the room.

Cleaning up

Stone dust and old lime plaster travel a long way in a small cottage, so doors are closed behind the work area and the stair is sheeted. The sheets are lifted and the room is brushed through before we leave.

Where the sun falls

A back kitchen on a Shelf hillside may face any way the slope allows. We stand in the room on the survey and note where the sun arrives, so the glass is not placed to cast heat onto the cooker or glare onto the table.

Why the roof matters

Stone slate roofs are heavy, laid in diminishing courses with large slabs at the eaves and smaller ones near the ridge, and the lifting has to be done by hand. Welsh slate is lighter and thinner. If an old covering has slipped or cracked near the line of the opening, we point it out at the survey so the frame goes into sound material.

Where water tries to get in

Water looks for the four edges of the frame, and each edge has its own answer, set out in the table. The head is the edge that matters most on a hillside, because wind drives rain up the slope as well as down it, so the covering above the frame is laid to lap over the flashing and the water has no way under.

Holding the frame to the timbers

On an exposed roof the frame is screwed to the rafters and the trimmers, with brackets suited to the make of the unit, and it is never left to hang from the battens alone. The rafters are checked for soundness before they are asked to carry a frame, and a rotten timber is replaced during the work.

Flat roofs on stone houses

A flat extension roof on a stone house has its own weak point: the upstand where the covering rises against the stone. A rooflight kerb is built up from the deck in timber, wrapped in the same membrane as the roof, and the membrane is dressed over the top edge of the kerb under the rooflight frame, so rain running down the glass meets the covering with no joint in its way.

After the first winter

Nothing about a rooflight needs attention at once, but a look at the flashings after a hard season is a sensible habit. Leaves and moss gather at the foot of a frame on a shaded slope, and a brush clears them.

What we check for your address

• Whether the house carries a listing. A listed house requires consent of its own before a rooflight goes in, whatever permitted development says.
• Whether the street falls in a conservation area, and whether an Article 4 direction removes the usual rights.
• Whether the home is a house or a flat. Permission is usually needed for a flat, so the council is the one to ask.

What goes with an application

An application shows where the unit sits on the roof, how big it is and how it relates to the windows below. Our notes from the roof give all three, and the written quote is fixed to match them, so the drawings and the order agree. If the council asks for changes, a different unit goes into a fresh quote before anything is ordered.

If the answer is that the council must be asked

The application goes to Calderdale Council with drawings of the roof and the position of the unit, and the unit is chosen to suit the roof. On a stone or slate roof that usually means a slim-framed conservation rooflight sitting low to the covering, kept off the front slope where possible.

Why a conservation unit suits a stone roof

A conservation rooflight has a slim black frame, often with one glazing bar down the middle, and it lies low to the covering. On a grey stone-slate or slate roof it reads as part of the roof and not as a bright plastic box, so officers often ask for it on traditional buildings. The rules for older streets are covered in rooflights in conservation areas.

Replacing an existing rooflight

Replacing within the existing opening disturbs the roof much less than cutting a new one, and it looks the same from the street. We still check the house, since a listed building can call for consent even for a like-for-like swap.