Skylights and rooflights in Stapenhill

Stapenhill is described as a village and civil parish within Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire. OpenStreetMap tags it a suburb, Wikipedia calls it a village, and both have a case: the settlement was a small village owned by Nigel of Stafford in 1086, and it has long since been surrounded by new housing and absorbed into the Burton urban area. A roof here may belong to any of those chapters. Our survey begins with the materials and the framing, and only afterwards with the style.

The nineteenth century left its mark on the district. The Ratcliff brewery family provided public baths for Stapenhill in the 1870s, since demolished, and homes for local workers in Balfour Street and Craven Street. That is all the record gives, and we keep to it. Nobody has told us what roofs those houses carry today, so we do not describe them. What a terrace on a tight plot usually means for a surveyor is a modest window, a close look at the timbers, and a drawing made only after the loft has been seen.

Wikipedia also lists some of the pubs the district has seen come and go. The Copper Hearth is now a One Stop supermarket, the Punch Bowl is a care home, the Freehold Tavern a Chinese restaurant, and The Plough was pulled down for housing. Change of use is where roof questions get interesting, since a conversion often puts a new floor plan under an old roof. A roof window that was never in the original design can be the quickest way to make a converted upper floor liveable.

Two suburbs lie near on the OpenStreetMap record: Brizlincote, about 1.3 kilometres from the point we use for Stapenhill, and Anglesey, about 1.5. The dividing line between one era of building and the next is blurred in a district like this, so every address is treated as its own case. The street name gives a hint, the loft gives the answer.

Energy figures are easy to forget until the unit arrives and has to comply. We read the Part L numbers into the specification at the quote stage, so the glass you are shown on paper is the glass that goes in the roof. If something else is wanted, such as a darker tint on a sunny slope, it is agreed in writing before the order is placed.

It helps to know what we will and will not guess. We do not guess the age of a roof from the street name, or the structure from the age. We open the hatch. Houses of different ages can hide different timbers under similar slates or tiles, and the cut that suits one will weaken another. A look in the loft first is cheaper for everyone than finding out with the roof already open.

East Staffordshire Borough Council decides planning questions for Stapenhill, and its starting position favours the householder. Class C of the 2015 order permits a skylight or roof window with no application, as long as three conditions are met. Nothing projects beyond 150mm. The top edge stays beneath the roof's peak. A pane facing the side boundary is frosted and does not open, provided whatever opens is set over 1.7m up from floor level.

The planning register has no conservation area called Stapenhill. Several are recorded across Burton upon Trent, and one, the town-centre area numbered 2 and 3, lies only a short distance from the point we use for the village. It holds seventy listed buildings, almost all Grade II, with a Grade I and four II* picked out among them. Smaller areas sit between about 1.25 and 1.5 kilometres away, around George Street (designated 12 December 1988), Station Street and Borough Road (21 January 1999), Horninglow Street and Guild Street (14 May 1990) and Clarence Street and Anglesey Road (no date held).

Whether a house falls inside one of them depends on the exact address. The exceptions are houses near a boundary, and for those a look at the council's map settles the matter. A conservation area does not remove the Class C right by itself, though an Article 4 direction can. A listed house needs consent before any new roof opening is made, however small.

People in flats and maisonettes are in a different position, because the householder allowance does not reach them. A planning application comes first there, and the freeholder usually has to agree. The full guide to planning and building control covers the detail.

Building Regulations run alongside planning without depending on it. Where a new opening has to be notified, we make that notification ourselves, by whichever route is chosen, council or private registered approver, so that nothing is outstanding when the roof is opened.

Stapenhill lies 27.3 road miles from Leicester towards the west-north-west, and the drive is about 51 minutes. The A444 and the A5189 are the main roads nearby, the Trent is the only named water on the map, and Burton-on-Trent station is 1.9 kilometres off. We take jobs here as readily as nearer ones. The distance is why we ask for photographs first and why we try to leave the site with nothing left to come back for.

The usual jobs fall into four groups. Terrace lofts want roof windows sized to the timbers. Flat-roofed extensions want a kerb-mounted rooflight with enough upstand that rain runs clear. Dark inner rooms want a sun tunnel. And older units that have clouded between the panes are replaced as set out under replacing misted rooflights.

Flat roofs on this kind of extension nearly always rely on a layer of felt, single-ply membrane or similar, and a rooflight has to be dressed into that covering without breaking its waterproofing. The kerb is built up, the covering is turned up its sides, and a flashing closes the joint. That is why the survey includes a look at the roof surface, not only at the room beneath, and why the quote says what the covering is. Tidy detailing at the upstand is what keeps a flat-roof unit dry for the long run.

A sun tunnel deserves a sentence of its own, since people rarely know it exists. Outside is a low dome. Inside is a flush ceiling disc, the size of a dinner plate or bigger. The tube joining them, mirror-lined, passes through the loft. It suits hallways, landings and bathrooms with no outside wall, and the work is done mostly from the loft with very little mess in the room.

Energy rules come next. Part L (2021) names two thresholds for an existing house. Roof windows: a U-value of 1.4, measured in W/m²K, or alternatively Window Energy Rating band B. Rooflights on flat roofs: a U-value of 2.2. We choose glazing that clears them with room to spare. Daylight is the odd one out, since the regulations set no daylight standard for houses in England, which leaves the amount of glass to you and the roof.

A word about loft rooms, since a roof window often goes with one. Under Approved Document B a window is only a recognised escape route up to 4.5m off the ground. A loft room on a two-storey house is higher than that, so the regulations look to a protected stair for the way out, and the roof window handles daylight and ventilation. Better to hear that at the kitchen table than from an inspector.

The sunny side of a house raises another point. Tinted solar-control glazing, a blind, or a smaller unit set high on the slope will keep a loft bedroom bearable in July and still bright in January. We go through the options at the survey and the quote names the glass.

Every quote is fixed and in writing, and it names the product, its size and where on the roof it goes. If the survey finds something that alters the plan, it goes into the quote before you agree and not after.