Rooflight and skylight installation in Heybridge

Converted industrial and canal buildings

Former works, warehouses and canal side buildings converted to residential use have roofs unlike anything in ordinary housing.

The structure may be historic timber, cast or wrought iron, twentieth century steel, or a lightweight truss system installed during conversion. Each carries load differently and each responds differently to an opening being formed. A survey establishes what is actually there before anything is specified, and a heavy unit such as a lantern may need structural input that would be unnecessary on a house.

Spans are frequently much wider than domestic, which can be an advantage: where the structure allows, there is room for larger units or runs of several without the truss spacing constraint that limits an ordinary estate house.

The permission history matters too. Conversions are frequently granted with conditions about rooflights, or with permitted development rights removed entirely by condition, and those conditions run with the property regardless of who owns it now. Read the original permission rather than assuming permitted development applies.

The terraces

Nineteenth century workers’ housing with narrow plans, steep pitches and slate or clay plain tile coverings. Frequently an internal bathroom, WC or hallway with no external wall.

That is exactly what a sun tunnel is for. A rigid mirrored tube brings genuine daylight into a room that has never had any, for a fraction of the cost of anything else, and the roof component is small enough to be effectively invisible from the street.

Specify rigid rather than flexible, because a flexible foil tube scatters light at every fold and delivers roughly a third of what a rigid tube of the same diameter gives. Size by diameter, since output goes with area, so 350mm passes about twice the light of 250mm. And insulate the tube where it crosses the cold loft, or condensation forms inside it and arrives at the diffuser looking exactly like a leak.

Access on these terraces is the main practical constraint: no off street parking, frontages on the pavement, and in places no side access to the rear. Scaffold on the highway needs a licence and time to arrange.

Estuary exposure

Heybridge faces the Blackwater and properties toward the basin and the sea wall are genuinely exposed.

Stainless steel fixings rather than plated, because salt air corrodes plated fixings within a few years and a failed fixing means a loose flashing. A durable exterior finish, with aluminium clad timber suiting exposed positions particularly well. And a generously sized flashing kit of the correct profile with a well lapped underlay collar, because driving rain is pushed under a covering rather than running down it.

On larger units and anything that opens, wind loading is worth checking against the site. A rain sensor on a motorised unit earns its keep here, because weather comes off the water quickly.

The twentieth century and modern housing

Ordinary work and much easier. Concrete interlocking tiles, pitches around 30 to 35 degrees, cut roofs on the earlier properties and trussed rafters on the later ones, off street parking and space to stand a tower.

Establish cut or trussed from a loft photograph, because it decides more about the price than the choice of unit does. Profiled tiles need a deep flashing kit rather than the flat kit used on slate.

On the newest development, check the deeds for covenants restricting alterations to elevations facing the street, and where a structural warranty is still running, keep the written specification and guarantee showing the work was carried out to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Extensions

Common across the area, and the kerb decides whether the installation lasts: at least 150mm of upstand, the deck falling away from it so water cannot pond against the seal, and rigid insulation on the outer face of the kerb itself. On an exposed estuary position the fall matters more than usual, because standing water and driving rain together are what work a seal loose.

What the quotation itemises

The unit with manufacturer, model, size and glazing specification, including coastal grade options where the position warrants them. The flashing kit and which profile. The fixings, specified as stainless on exposed positions. The insulation collar as a named line, or on a flat roof the kerb detail including whether the outer face is insulated. Access and who provides it, including any highway licence. Structural work and whether an engineer’s fee is included. Making good and whether decoration is included. Disposal, Building Control where notifiable, and a stated contingency for decayed timber.

A quotation with one number against rooflight supplied and fitted is not comparable with anything, and on an exposed estuary site the things that are not written down are exactly the ones that decide whether the installation lasts.

Doing several together

The reliable saving, and it matters most where access is expensive. On a terrace needing pavement scaffold and a highway licence, two units done together cost far less than two done a year apart.

Since units fitted at the same time fail at about the same time, and coastal exposure brings sealed unit life toward the shorter end of the fifteen to twenty five year range, the second replacement is usually coming anyway.

Guarantee

Ten years on our workmanship, covering the weathering, the flashing, the frame fixing, the insulation collar and the making good. Alongside it sits the manufacturer’s warranty on the product, which is separate cover from a separate party.

Most rooflight problems are installation problems rather than product failures, which is why the first matters more. Where a unit does fail under a manufacturer’s warranty on a job we did, we handle that claim ourselves.