Skylight Installation in Great Bentley
- Fixed quote before we start
- Roof never left open overnight
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
- Fixed quote before we start
- 10 years workmanship guarantee
- 25 years fitting rooflights
- Skylights only, not a general roofer
Great Bentley is best known for its village green, one of the largest in England, and the housing sits around and behind it in a way that tells you most of what you need to know about the roofs. A lot of twentieth-century development, and a high proportion of it bungalows and chalet bungalows. Which means hips. Walk a circuit of the green and back through the roads behind it and you will see far more hipped roofs than gables, and that single geometric fact changes what is possible with a rooflight more than anything else about the house.
It is 14.7 miles from Ipswich in a straight line and about 30 minutes to drive, so a survey here is an easy morning and a return visit costs nobody anything.
Why a hipped roof gives you less slope than you think
On a gable-ended house, the roof slope is a plain rectangle. A rooflight can go almost anywhere on it, and the only real constraints are the rafter positions and the distance to ridge and eaves.
A hipped roof is not a rectangle. The main slopes are trapeziums and the end slopes are triangles. The hip rafters run diagonally from the ridge ends down into the corners of the building, and each one eats into the width of the slope as you move down towards the eaves. So the widest part of the slope is at the top, where you have least room before you hit the ridge.
The usable rectangle, the bit where a unit sits clear of the hip rafters, clear of the ridge and with enough tile above and below to weather properly, is a good deal smaller than the roof looks from the garden.
What that means for size and position
Two practical consequences.
- Tall and narrow usually beats wide. A wide unit runs out of room quickly because the hips close in from both sides. A taller, narrower unit uses the vertical depth of the slope, which on a hip is the dimension you have more of. Two narrow units side by side often deliver more glass than one wide one, and they set out more comfortably between rafters.
- Position is largely decided for you. The unit has to sit clear of the hip rafter, which is a structural member, and it needs a sensible run of tile above and below for the flashing to work. Apply all of that and there is often only one place on a given slope where a unit sensibly goes.
We work that out on the roof with a tape, not from a photograph. Normal pitched roof skylight installation work, but the setting out takes longer on a hip.
Common misunderstanding: people assume the biggest unit gives the most light. On a hipped slope, a unit sized to fit between existing rafters and placed correctly usually delivers better usable daylight than a larger one shoehorned in near the hip, where the reveal has to be splayed awkwardly and the head sits too high.
Chalet bungalows, where the rooflight is the only daylight
The chalet bungalows around Great Bentley are a particular case. The first floor rooms sit inside the roof itself, so they have no ordinary wall to put a window in except at a gable end, if there is one. Everything else is roof slope and eaves. For a bedroom or a landing in the middle of that plan, a rooflight is not one option among several. It is the only realistic source of daylight there is, which raises the stakes on getting the position right.
Head height at the eaves decides everything
In a room-in-roof the ceiling follows the rafters down to a low knee wall at the eaves, and head height falls away fast as you move towards the outside wall. Put a rooflight low on the slope and it is technically in the room but nobody can stand in front of it. Put it too high and you get plenty of light and a view of nothing but sky.
So we measure the internal head height along the slope before deciding, and set the unit so the bottom of the glass lands at a sensible sightline. As a rule of thumb a seated sightline wants the bottom of the unit at roughly 900mm to 1100mm above the finished floor, and a standing sightline wants it lower on the slope than people instinctively choose. Which one matters depends on the room. A bedroom you want to see out of from the bed is a different answer to a landing you only walk through.
The other half of the calculation is the head. The top of the unit needs to sit where somebody standing under it does not crack their skull on the reveal, and where the top reveal can be splayed horizontally to throw light back into the room.
Ventilation, and the case for opening units
Room-in-roof spaces get warm. Heat rises into them, and with the only opening high on a slope the stack effect works in your favour if the unit opens and against you if it does not. On most chalet bungalow bedrooms we would specify an opening unit for that reason alone. Where it ends up out of reach on a high slope, an electric skylight installation with a rain sensor solves the problem of a window nobody can operate. These rooms also sit directly under the covering with limited insulation depth, so the thermal specification matters more than usual. See energy efficient skylight installation.
The roofs around the green were not all built at once
The housing that rings the green and fills the roads behind it went up across most of the twentieth century, and the roofs come from different eras of building practice. The earlier houses, between the wars and just after, were framed by hand, with a carpenter cutting the rafters, purlins and ridge on site. The later phases, from the 1970s onward, increasingly used factory trussed rafters delivered ready-made. From the garden two such roofs can look identical under the same tiles. In the loft they are completely different, and that difference decides more about a rooflight, and about a loft conversion, than anything you can see from outside.
Whether the loft converts at all turns on the roof type
A good number of enquiries here start with a loft conversion in mind and the rooflight as part of it, so the roof structure is the first thing worth understanding. A hand cut roof has loose rafters and clear space between the members, which is usually convertible: the floor is strengthened, the slopes are lined and insulated, and rooflights or a dormer bring in the daylight. A trussed roof fills the loft with a web of diagonal members that carry the whole roof, and those cannot simply be removed. Converting a trussed roof is still possible, but it is a bigger structural job, because the trusses have to be replaced with a new arrangement of beams and rafters that leaves the room clear. Knowing which you have tells you whether you are looking at a straightforward rooflight into an existing room or a full structural conversion, and we can usually tell at a glance in the loft.
Tiles and flashing on this stock
Most of the twentieth-century roofs around the village are covered in concrete interlocking tiles, with some of the older houses in clay. The covering decides the flashing. A profiled concrete tile needs a kit shaped to dress down into the contour of the tile, so water runs over the surface and clears, while a plain or clay tile takes a different detail. We match the flashing to the tile rather than fitting one kit to everything, because a lap that does not sit down on the tile profile is where a rooflight starts to weep years later. Cut tiles around the new opening are swapped for sound ones where the old ones have grown brittle.
Conservation, and what the survey confirms
Great Bentley is not generally under conservation control, and most of the stock around the green sits comfortably within permitted development for a rooflight, so for the majority of homes there is no consent to obtain. The exceptions are the handful of older or listed buildings, where the position is different and we check it before anything is ordered. Beyond that, the survey confirms the practical things: the roof structure and whether it is cut or trussed, the exact clear rectangle the hip geometry allows, the internal head height along the slope, and the tile and flashing detail. Access for the survey is simple. The roads around the green take a vehicle easily and most houses have a clear approach to the eaves, so a proper look at the roof is a short visit rather than a production.
Booking a skylight installation in Great Bentley
We survey the roof and the room, work out what the hip geometry allows, and price it once in writing. Twenty-five years in the trade, experienced VELUX, Keylite and Roto installers, a 10-year workmanship guarantee, everything installed to current Building Regulations. If your bungalow roof is a hip and you have been told a rooflight is not possible, it is worth a second look. It is more often a question of size and position than a flat no.
We cover the same stretch of the district, including Thorpe le Soken, Alresford and Elmstead Market. The full list is on areas we cover.
Request a fixed quote for a rooflight in Great Bentley. A photograph of the roof from the garden and the internal room dimensions gets you a useful answer before anyone visits.
Can you fit a rooflight on a hipped bungalow roof?
Yes, in most cases. The limit is not whether it can be done but where the unit can go and how big it can be. The hip rafters run diagonally into the corners and narrow the slope as you go down, so the area where a unit sits clear of the hip, clear of the ridge and with enough tile around it for the flashing is smaller than the roof appears. We measure it on site and tell you the largest size that genuinely works on your slope.
Why are you suggesting a tall narrow unit instead of a wide one?
Because of the shape of the slope. On a hip you have more vertical depth than usable width, since the hips cut in from both sides. A tall narrow unit uses the dimension you have plenty of and sets out cleanly between rafters. A wide unit runs into a hip rafter quickly. Where more glass is wanted, two narrow units side by side often give a better result than one wide one, and the light is more evenly spread across the room.
Our chalet bungalow bedroom is in the roof. How high up the slope should the window go?
It depends what you want to see out of. For a view from a bed or a chair, the bottom of the glass wants to be around 900mm to 1100mm above the floor, which puts it lower on the slope than most people expect. For a standing sightline it goes lower still. Set it too high and you get a bright room with a view of nothing but sky. We measure the head height along the slope and set the unit to the sightline that matters for that room.
Can I convert the loft as well, or just fit a rooflight?
It depends on how the roof is built. A hand cut roof, common on the older houses around the green, usually has clear space in the loft and converts without major structural change, with rooflights bringing in the daylight. A trussed roof, more common on the later estate houses, is filled with structural webs that cannot simply be removed, so a conversion there is a larger structural job. If you only want a rooflight into an existing room in the roof, that is more straightforward either way. We can tell you which roof you have from the loft.
Do I need planning permission for a rooflight on a bungalow here?
Usually not. Permitted development generally allows a rooflight that projects no more than 150mm above the roof plane and does not sit above the ridge, and most of the twentieth-century stock around the village falls comfortably within that. If your property is listed or the works are more than a rooflight, for instance a dormer or a change to the roof structure, the position changes. We flag anything that looks like it needs checking at survey.
Thinking about this job? We survey across Ipswich, Suffolk and north Essex and give you a fixed price before any work starts, with a 10-year workmanship guarantee.