Skylights and rooflights for Nuneaton extensions and lofts

A brick terrace has a deep, narrow plan, and the middle of it is where daylight gives out: the landing, the hall, the back of the kitchen. The roof is the one surface above those rooms that still sees the sky.

Two units do most of the work. In the slope, a roof window brings light to a loft room or down into the stairwell below. A flat rooflight lights a flat-roofed rear extension. The quote sets the suitable ones in a row.

Semis and the loft conversion

The wide estates of interwar and post-war semis are where a loft conversion makes most sense: the roof is usually a plain pitch with a decent volume under it. Roof windows are how the new room gets its daylight, and the number and size depend on the floor area and the structure.

Where a loft sits over two storeys, a protected stair carries the escape, and the windows in the slope are left to give light and air. Your builder or designer draws the stair, and we study the plans and position the windows where the room will use them.

Kitchens and bathrooms

A rooflight over a kitchen or a bathroom meets steam, so the opening type matters more than in a bedroom. A unit that opens lets the steam leave, and one with a vent in the frame lets air through while closed.

Neither takes the place of an extractor fan. They sit alongside it, and the quote shows which units open and how.

Blinds, privacy and night light

A roof window is set high in the slope, so it is seldom overlooked from the street or from the houses opposite. At night it is a black rectangle, and in summer it lets in light early in the morning. A blind solves both, and there are several types to compare: a blackout blind running in side rails, a pleated blind that softens the light, and an external blind that stops the sun reaching the glass.

We choose the blind with the window, because some blind types need to be matched to the model of the window. The quote lists the options beside each unit, so you can see the full cost of a dark, cool bedroom before you decide.

The planning side in Nuneaton

Planning applications in Nuneaton go to Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council, which makes the decision. Permitted development covers a fair spread of rooflight and roof window jobs in Nuneaton, so an application is often unnecessary, and the conditions sit in our rooflight planning guide. A listed house gets its rooflight consent through the listed building route, whatever permitted development might otherwise allow, and the right can vanish altogether where an Article 4 direction removed it, or where a condition imposed on the original planning permission did.

Your address is looked up before we suggest any unit, and what is allowed is the council's call. Where an application is needed we provide the drawings and the unit details.

Glass for rooms that face the garden

A kitchen extension with big glazed doors already takes plenty of sun, and a rooflight above adds more. A solar control coating lowers the heat that passes through, and an external blind adds a second layer. In a north-facing room the better comparison is the glass with the best winter figure.

Part L, applied to an existing Nuneaton home, treats 2.2 W/m²K as the ceiling for a rooflight, while for roof windows the standard is 1.4 W/m²K or, failing that, WER Band B. Each unit's own figure is printed on the quote beside it.

Replacing a tired rooflight

Rear extensions from the previous few decades often have a rooflight with a plastic dome or sheet that has yellowed and leaks air. A glass unit built to suit the measured opening goes in once the kerb has been checked along with the covering that surrounds it.

Taking out the whole rooflight with its frame and glass and fitting a new one is notifiable work, and we file the Building Control notification. A sealed glass unit alone, in a sound frame, is not, and our page on misted and failed rooflight replacement explains the choice.