Skylights and rooflights for brick houses and chalet bungalows in Upper Poppleton and the Vale of York

A flashing that follows the wave

The frame is surrounded by a flashing kit made for a profiled tile, with soft aprons at the sides and bottom that mould to the curve. They hold the line of the wave and shed the water onto the next tiles down. A kit made for slate would leave gaps at every trough, so the kit follows the tile.

Lifting the tiles

This is slow work and it is done before the frame is brought up to the roof.

Pantiles are brittle at the edges. We take them off by hand from the opening and a margin round it, lay them aside in order and check each for cracks. The lath beneath is shortened to the line of the frame, and new timber is fixed so that the tile rows meet the flashing cleanly at the sides.

Matching what is already there

Old clay pantiles weather unevenly, and a new one beside an old one can stand out. Where a tile breaks we look for a reclaimed one of the same colour before we reach for a new one. The result is a roof in which the glazed frame is easy to find and the tiles around it are not.

The size of the frame

A pantile roof is battened at fixed gaps, and a frame is easier to lay in when its height suits the batten spacing. The letters and digits in a VELUX code are explained in the guide to VELUX sizes and codes, and the right size depends on the gap between rafters.

Tiles on later roofs

Not every Poppleton roof is clay. Houses from later decades carry concrete tile, and a newer extension may have a flat roof of felt or rubber.

Later houses are often covered in concrete tile, and the same method applies with a different flashing kit. Inside the Upper Poppleton conservation area, where pantile and Welsh slate are the usual roofs, conservation officers often ask for a low, slim frame, as the conservation rooflight page describes.

Once the tile and the room are known, the quote gives a fixed price for the unit and the opening.

The address and the authority

The post town and the county name can mislead here. A household in the village pays its council tax to York, takes its planning decisions from York and sends its applications there. Villages across the boundary come under North Yorkshire Council instead, so the council's own map settles which office a house belongs to.

Three points to settle with the council

• Ask if your part of the village is a designated conservation area, and if an Article 4 direction covers it.
• Whether the house is a listed building. Consent for a rooflight is then a matter for the council, whatever the usual allowances say.
• Whether the house has been converted. Flats and maisonettes do not share the roof-alteration allowance that a house has.

If none of those apply

A detached or semi-detached house outside those categories can normally take a rooflight without an application, so long as the frame rises less than 150mm off the roof and stays below the ridge. Any window in a side-facing slope below 1.7m above the floor must be fixed and obscure. The planning guide lays out each condition.

Sloping roofs and extensions

A bungalow or chalet bungalow is a house, so the same allowance applies. A rooflight on a flat extension roof is a different thing. A roof lantern rises higher than a rooflight, and it often goes beyond the 150mm limit, so the council's view on a lantern comes first, and permission already granted for the extension may take it in. The roof lantern planning page gives more.

Taking photographs

Pictures from the garden show the slope the unit would sit in, and pictures from the road show whether it could be seen.

When you speak to the council, photographs of the roof from the road and from the garden help. They show which slope can be seen and where a unit would sit. We can describe the unit you are considering, and the written quote names it with its size.

Close to the glass

A chalet's roof room is the reverse of the deep loft in a bungalow.

Because the ceiling follows the rafters, the window sits only a short way above the room. There is no deep loft between the two, so the light well is shallow and little daylight is lost on the way down. That is an easy case for a roof window.

Choosing the position

A landing is often the middle stretch of the upstairs plan, with a bedroom either side. A window centred over it lights the doors of both. For a bathroom, the position suits the bath or shower first, so that the opening sash clears the steam where it forms. Both fit between the same pair of rafters only where the rooms are side by side.

Bathroom use

A shower room under a roof slope is warm and wet, and the frame that goes in it is made for a roof. The lining slopes away from the glass, so condensation runs to the sill and not down the wall.

A bathroom produces steam, and a roof window above a shower or bath lets it escape when it opens. An extractor fan and an opening window each do a different part of the job. A roof window in the bathroom slope also lights the room from above.

Escape from a roof room

For escape purposes a chalet bungalow counts differently from a two-storey house. Rooms in its roof may use a roof window as their way out while they stay within the height limit, and Approved Document B sets the minimum opening sizes. If the window is meant to be an escape window as well as a light source, the unit is chosen with that in mind.

Sizes under a slope

Under a sloping ceiling, a window that is long from eaves to ridge lights more floor than a short, wide one, because the glass runs up the slope and catches more sky. The lining of the shaft is shaped so that light reaches the landing floor, and splayed wells and plastered reveals do that job.

A tunnel for the downstairs

The downstairs hall or cloakroom of a chalet bungalow is under the upstairs rooms, so the roof cannot reach it directly. A sun tunnel only works where the tube can pass through the upstairs floor space, for example at the edge of the roof room, and we look at the plan to see whether it can.