Skylights and rooflights around Polesworth

Polesworth is a village with a long, mixed building history, so one street can hold a cottage, a terrace, an inter-war pair and a bungalow. Every roof here allows a different rooflight, so we begin the survey by working out which of them your own roof can actually carry, before any size or glass is chosen.

On a pitched roof the roof window sits in the slope itself and lights the room underneath it. A flat roof takes a lantern or a flat rooflight. We set the suitable ones against each other on the quote, so the decision stays with you.

Bungalows and the room in the roof

Bungalows in and around the village are the houses where a roof window does the most. Often the roof void has the height to become a study or a bedroom, while a pair of roof windows on the same slope brings in daylight without altering the outline of the house.

Approved Document B sets 4.5m from the ground as the height for escape windows, and a bungalow roof room inside that height may have a roof window doubling as the exit, which often settles whether a bedroom is possible up there in one of the village's bungalows. We measure the cill height and the clear opening at the survey and quote only units that suit the room.

A bungalow with a low pitch also needs a window designed for it. Some roof windows are made for pitches down to a shallow angle, and others need a steeper slope to drain properly, so the pitch has to be measured before the sizes are set.

Glass for the way the roof faces

The glass matters as much as the frame. Strong afternoon sun hits a rooflight on a south or west slope, and glass with a solar control coating lets less of that heat into the room, though it looks slightly tinted to the eye. A rooflight facing north gets steady, cooler light, and clear glass with the best winter insulation usually suits it better.

Self-cleaning glass is a third choice worth pricing for a flat rooflight that is hard to reach, because rain carries off the dust that settles on a low pitch. Acoustic glass is a fourth, for a bedroom roof window where rain on the glass would otherwise be noticed. We list the glass options beside each unit on the quote, with what each gains and what it gives up.

Older cottages and character roofs

Cottages in the older part of Polesworth tend to have steeper roofs, narrower rafters and clay tiles that have weathered unevenly. A modern roof window works in them, though the flashing needs care so that the old tiles are cut cleanly around the frame.

The other option is a conservation rooflight, whose slim dark frame sits close to the tile line so that it reads as part of the roof. It costs more than a standard window and the maker's typical range for delivery is longer, which the quote states in full. The finishes appear on our page on conservation rooflight installation, and roof window installation covers the standard range.

Inside an older roof we also look at the underside. If the rafters are exposed or the ceiling follows the slope, the lining around the window, called the splay, is shaped to bring light into the room, and the quote describes how it is finished so there are no surprises once the plasterwork is done.

Checking planning in Polesworth

Planning decisions for Polesworth homes rest with North Warwickshire Borough Council. Installing a rooflight or roof window in Polesworth often falls within permitted development, and the governing conditions for it are laid out in full in our rooflight planning guide; the council may still ask for an application where a planning permission's condition, or an Article 4 direction, takes that right away.

Polesworth Abbey stands at the heart of the village, and buildings close to it may be listed or sit in a conservation area. Any rooflight on a listed building has to have listed building consent, however permitted development would otherwise treat it. Before the survey we look your address up in the council's records, and what is finally allowed is the council's decision.