Rooflight and skylight installation in Peldon

Marshland exposure

Properties here stand in open ground with the marshes and the estuary close by, and the specification should account for it.

Stainless steel fixings rather than plated, because salt carries inland on the wind here and plated fixings corrode within a few years. 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 and the flashing carries almost the whole burden.

On larger units and anything that opens, wind loading is worth checking against the site rather than assuming a catalogue figure. A rain sensor on a motorised unit is worth more here than inland, because weather comes across the marshes quickly and with little warning.

The older buildings

Cottages and farmhouses, many timber framed, some weatherboarded, with handmade clay plain tile, peg tile and pantile coverings on steep pitches.

These roofs frequently combine several building periods, extended and altered over centuries. Pitches vary within a single property, coverings change from one section to the next, and the timber ranges from historic hand cut rafters to twentieth century repairs. Every dimension is measured off the building at the position the unit will occupy, because a rafter spacing in one bay may not match the next.

Where historic timber is part of a listing, an opening is positioned to avoid it rather than cut through it, and the survey establishes where a rooflight can go before anybody discusses what it should be.

These buildings move seasonally and the fixing allows for it rather than clamping a rigid modern unit into a flexing frame.

Handmade clay is the most demanding covering in this trade: small, double lapped, irregular and brittle, with a proportion breaking on removal whatever care is taken. Pantiles need their own deep flashing profile and are unforgiving of a universal kit.

Consent

Listed building consent is required for a rooflight on a listed building, always, on any slope, whether or not anybody can see it. There is no rear elevation exception and no small works threshold.

Where a property is unlisted and outside any designation, permitted development normally applies: no more than 150mm projection beyond the plane of the roof and not above the highest part of it, with additional restrictions on side elevations facing a boundary.

For a converted agricultural building, read the original permission. Conversions are frequently granted with permitted development rights removed by condition, and those conditions run with the property regardless of who owns it now.

The twentieth century housing

Straightforward work. 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 before asking for a quotation, because it decides more about the price than the choice of unit does. Rafters with a purlin and clear space between means a wide opening is ordinary carpentry; triangular frames with diagonal webs joined by flat steel plates means the opening is limited to the 600mm truss spacing unless a designed trimmer is installed.

Profiled tiles need a deep flashing kit rather than the flat kit used on slate, and specify for exposure even on a modern house, because a property in Peldon is not in a sheltered position whatever decade it was built in.

Access

Good on site, with space around almost every property for a tower or scaffold on private land and no highway licences to arrange. The practical constraint is more often getting a delivery vehicle with a large unit down a narrow lane, which is worth establishing at survey rather than on the day.

We plan Peldon work as full days. Access is a fixed cost shared across everything done on the same visit, so mention everything that needs doing at the enquiry stage.

What moves the number here

Whether the opening already exists. The covering, since handmade clay and pantile are slow and a proportion breaks while concrete tile lifts cleanly. Whether historic timber constrains the position, which can turn a stock size into a made to measure with several weeks of lead time. Exposure, because a correctly profiled generously lapped flashing kit and stainless fixings cost slightly more than the minimum and are not optional out here. And what is found on strip out, for which we name a contingency rather than pretending it cannot happen.

Access is rarely a factor, which is unusual. There is space around almost every property for a tower or scaffold on private land and no highway licences to arrange.

Doing several together

Access and travel are fixed costs shared across everything done on the same visit, and on a small outlying parish that share is proportionally larger than in town. If there is more than one thing that needs doing, it is worth mentioning at the enquiry stage rather than one item at a time.

Guarantee and aftercare

Ten years on our workmanship, alongside the manufacturer’s warranty on the product. Most rooflight problems are installation problems, which is why the first matters more, and where a unit fails under the manufacturer’s warranty on a job we did, we handle that claim ourselves.

The routine care is short. Clean the gasket once a year so the sash seats properly. Clean the filter at the top of the sash. Cycle any motorised unit fully a few times a year including in winter, because mechanisms that sit unused seize. And on an exposed roof, check the flashing and fixings every few years after a storm.