Skylights and rooflights in Burbage

Burbage is said to take its name from words for a valley or brook with a fortification, which gives you the site in a few words. The place on record in 1564 was small: the diocesan returns list 57 families in Burbage and six at Sketchley. Growth was slow for centuries, and the population did not pass two thousand until the twentieth century. Then it moved quickly. By 1953 there were 3,983 people, and by 1958 more than 5,000 names were on the electoral roll, largely because of the Sketchley Hill housing estates.

That history is why we treat the parish as several places. The old village is now a small part of a big parish that also takes in Sketchley Village and a scatter of large and small residential estates. Wikipedia describes Burbage as a large village now generally thought of as a southern suburb of Hinckley, and the OpenStreetMap record names Tilton, Lash Hill and Sketchley as quarters within it. A rooflight job in one of those can look nothing like a job in another.

On the estates that grew in the middle of the last century, the usual question is whether a loft used for storage can become a room. The step from storage to a proper room is usually where a skylight enters. We measure the height under the ridge, look at how the rafters are spaced and where any purlin runs, and tell the owner honestly whether a roof window gives them a usable room or just a brighter box room.

Freestyle Burbage, a crowdfunded programme of events run by residents from the Sketchley Hill and Lash Hill area since 2013, tells you something useful about the place. People here know their neighbours and compare notes. A skylight fitted well on one street is noticed on the next, and we would rather have the street talking about a tidy installation than a rushed one. Each job is finished with the surrounding slates or tiles dressed back properly and the loft swept clean.

Commuters are a big part of the picture here. The record notes that Burbage is considered by some to be a commuter location for large parts of Leicestershire, Warwickshire and the West Midlands, helped by the M69 and the A5 being less than a mile away. Households who work away from home want a quiet room to work in, and a bright study under the roof is a common reason to call.

Houses in this part of Leicestershire have usually been extended at least once. A rear kitchen pushed out into the garden gives you a bright patio end and a dark kitchen end, because the only light arrives sideways. A flat rooflight set over the working area fixes that. For deeper rooms, a pair of smaller units can do better than one big one, since they spread the light and are easier to carry up to the roof.

The usual starting question is whether the flat roof underneath is sound enough to take a new opening. A kerb is a small timber box that stands on the roof deck, so the deck must be firm and the joists sized to carry a glass unit. We lift a corner of the covering where needed, look at the timbers, and decide whether the upstand can be built onto what is there or needs a stiffer frame. That is part of the free survey and goes into the fixed quote.

A rooflight also changes how a room sounds and holds heat. Rain on glass is louder than rain on tiles, and laminated glass in the inner pane softens it. A bedroom under the roof benefits from that choice, and so does a study where you want to concentrate. Before suggesting a specification we find out what the room will be used for, since a nursery, an office and a spare room each want something slightly different from the glass.

Glass matters more than people expect. Sun-facing extensions can get warm, and a solar-control coating limits the heat without turning the room grey. For rooms you want to air, an electric opening rooflight with a rain sensor lets steam and warm air out at the push of a button. Both options are described on our service pages, and we go through them against your own room rather than reading from a catalogue.

Thermal figures we work to

Existing dwellings are held to Part L (2021 edition). A pitched roof window must reach 1.4 on the U-value scale or sit in Window Energy Rating band B; a rooflight is judged against 2.2. Ours meet those marks or beat them, because a skylight is a hole in an insulated ceiling and the glass has to keep pace with the roof around it.

One more point for villages and suburbs with mature gardens: trees. Leaf fall, sap and bird droppings gather on glass that is set at a low angle, and a rooflight under a tree needs a surface that rinses clean when it rains. A steeper pitch helps, as does self-cleaning glass, and we will say so at the survey if your roof sits under a big canopy.

A hallway, landing or bathroom with a roof void above it can still be lit. The answer there is a sun tunnel: a low dome outside, a mirrored light pipe through the void and a diffuser in the ceiling. It is a small job that makes a windowless corridor a pleasant place to walk through.

Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council is the planning authority. Permitted development rules (Schedule 2, Part 1, Class C) normally apply to an everyday house. The conditions are short: the glass sits no more than 150mm proud, it stays under the ridge, and side-facing glass must be frosted and held shut unless its opening portion starts above 1.7m. The whole text is in the longer planning guide.

A conservation area for Burbage, designated 22 February 1973, is on the planning register and takes in the middle of the village. Eleven listed buildings sit inside it: two Grade II* and nine Grade II. Being inside one does not cancel Class C by itself, although an Article 4 direction can. Listed houses need listed building consent for any rooflight. If your home is old or its slope is easy to see from the road, read about conservation rooflights.

None of this is meant to make a simple job sound hard. The work is mostly a good look at the roof, a clear plan and tidy fitting. The planning check takes minutes when the address is plain, and the survey is where we confirm everything on the day, in your loft, with the tape in hand.

The village centre is where the listed buildings gather, so a visit there often starts with a look at the street. We check whether the roof can be seen from the road, whether neighbours have fitted units and how they sit, and what the covering is made of. Clay tile, slate and concrete tile each take a different flashing kit, and that flashing is the part that keeps water out in the long run, so we choose the kit before anything is ordered.

The result of all this is simple enough. Before ordering, we read the planning register and the conservation area maps for your address, and the council can give the owner a firm answer; that covers the conservation area and any Article 4 direction. If your house is covered, we tell you what the council is likely to want to see, and the choice of a slim, low-profile unit often settles the matter.

On the practical side, the M69 and the A5 lie less than a mile from the village, so deliveries of large glass units reach the parish easily. Where a rooflight is too large to carry through the house, we plan the lift from outside with the right equipment, and agree the day and the access with you in advance.

Building Regulations run apart from planning. Notifiable work is notified by us, either to the borough or to a private inspector who is on the approved register. Reaching Burbage from Leicester is quick enough for a survey at short notice: the B4669 and B578 cross the parish, and Hinckley station is about 1.7 km off. Send a photograph by WhatsApp, or take the quick route to a visit through the quote form.