Skylight and rooflight installation in Tipton

Two jobs come up again and again in Tipton: a single-storey room at the back of a house that needs more daylight, and a loft or attic room in the slope that needs a window of its own. The first is a job for a flat rooflight, the second for a roof window, and the same survey can price both if you are thinking about each.

Each suitable unit appears on the written quote alongside the others, described by its glass, its frame and its opening type, which shows plainly what it offers and what you give up in return, price aside.

Roof windows in an older roof

The roofs on older Tipton houses are covered in plain clay tile, slate or, on later houses, concrete interlocking tile. The flashing kit must be the one made for the covering in question, and the window either fits between two rafters or arrives with a plan for trimming them. Rafter spacing in a Victorian roof can differ from one house to the next, which is why we measure rather than assume.

A terrace loft that has only ever held boxes could become a bedroom or a study with a roof window or two. Before we suggest sizes we look at the floor area under the slope, the height at the ridge and the position of the stair, because a window set too low or too high in the slope loses much of its use. Our page on roof windows for loft conversions covers the layout questions.

Blinds belong in the decision from the start, along with the window. A roof window in a bedroom collects light early in the morning and late in the evening, which is why blackout blinds in side channels are a common choice, and a solar reflecting blind helps on south-facing slopes in summer. Fitting the blind brackets during the installation is neater than adding them afterwards, and the quote can price the blind with each window so the comparison stays honest.

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council is the planning authority for Tipton, which means an application, or a query on whether permitted development reaches your house, goes to Sandwell. Many rooflights and roof windows in Tipton are spared an application by permitted development, so long as the job meets the terms of our rooflight planning guide.

Listed houses are different: listed building consent comes first for any rooflight, however much permitted development would allow. Elsewhere the right itself can be removed, either by a condition attached to the permission itself, or by an Article 4 direction in places where the council has made one. Your address is looked up for all of this before the quote, and drawings for an application, where one is needed, come from us. The council decides, and what we found is reported to you before you commit to anything.

Making a fresh hole through a roof is building work all on its own. Where one rooflight is removed and another put in, frame and glass both, the job is a controlled fitting and has to be notified; a sealed unit changed inside a sound frame is a lesser job that needs no notification. For anything notifiable, Building Control hears from us, and the completion certificate is sent on after sign-off.

Chalet bungalows and rooms in the roof

Approved Document B sets a height within which an opening can serve as escape, and a roof window inside it may serve the loft rooms of a bungalow or chalet bungalow. On a two-storey house the picture changes, because escape from a loft conversion calls for a protected stair, which leaves the roof window serving for light and air alone, not as the way out.

We ask which kind of house you have at the first conversation, because it changes the question we answer. For a chalet bungalow the opening size, the sill height and the clear width of the opening all go on the quote, while the page on roof windows and fire escape puts the rules in plain terms.