Skylight Installation in Great Cornard
- 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 Cornard is the large post-war suburb on the south-east side of Sudbury, mostly 1950s to 1970s housing built as the town expanded. It is estate stock: semis and terraces, a lot of it originally local-authority built, generous plots, roofs covered in concrete interlocking tile. That is a rooflight-friendly kind of house in principle, with usable loft volumes and straightforward pitched roofs. The wrinkle is age. These roofs are now half a century old and more, and on this stock the condition of the covering matters as much as the unit going into it.
It is 17.1 miles from Ipswich in a straight line, west, out on the A1071 towards Sudbury. Allow around forty minutes on the road. That is a real drive, so we survey once, work out exactly what your roof needs and arrive with everything, rather than making a second trip for a part.
Concrete tiles do not last forever, and these are getting on
Concrete interlocking tiles from the post-war decades were a good, cheap covering, but they age. The cement surface weathers off over time, the tile becomes porous and more brittle, and it starts to shed a fine grit. On a roof of this age some tiles will have lost their surface, a few will be cracked, and moss will have taken hold in the valleys and the north-facing pitches. None of that stops a rooflight going in, but it changes what happens around the opening.
When we cut in a unit, we have to lift and refit the tiles either side, and old brittle concrete tiles do not always survive being handled. We allow for replacements at survey, and matching a fifty-year-old tile is not always possible from current stock, so on a visible slope that is a conversation to have before the job rather than a surprise during it. On a roof that is genuinely near the end of its life, it is worth knowing that so you can plan the rooflight and any recovering together rather than paying to disturb the same slope twice.
What is under the tiles matters too
On a roof this age the battens and the underlay are the same vintage as the tiles. The old bitumen felt underlay used on post-war roofs becomes brittle and tears, and battens can be undersized or decayed by the time we open a slope up. When we form an opening we see the state of both, and where the timber around the new unit is not sound we deal with it properly rather than fixing a new window to tired battens. A rooflight is only as watertight as what it is fixed to.
Worth knowing: if your roof is close to needing a recover anyway, fitting a rooflight is a natural point to think about the whole slope. We will tell you honestly at survey whether the covering has years left in it or whether you are better doing both together. We fit rooflights and replacements, and we would rather you spent once.
Loft conversions on this stock
Great Cornard’s post-war housing often has the plot and the roof volume for a loft conversion, and when the room becomes habitable the rooflight does two regulatory jobs at once. Part B requires an escape route, and where that is a rooflight it sets a minimum clear opening and a position on the slope you can actually reach from the floor. Part L sets the thermal standard, which in practice means a modern double or triple-glazed unit around 1.2 W/m²K rather than the 2.8 an old one would manage. The numbers are on energy efficient skylight installation. On a shallower slope, the escape opening Part B wants and the minimum pitch the unit is rated to can pull against each other, which is a survey conversation, not an email one.
One estate, a handful of house types
Great Cornard was built out in phases to a limited number of standard designs, which is genuinely useful on a rooflight job. The semis and short terraces repeat, so a roof pitch, a rafter layout and a loft volume we have measured on one house type tell us a great deal about the next one of the same design. It means we can often give a realistic view of what a slope will take from a photograph and the house type alone, before the survey confirms it.
The complication is ownership. A lot of this was local-authority stock and much of it has passed into private hands over the decades, so a single terrace can have been re-roofed house by house at different dates. Walk a run and you may see the original concrete tile on one, a later concrete tile on the next and a full re-cover on a third, each a slightly different colour and profile. That matters because the flashing kit has to match the actual covering on your roof, not the design of the terrace, and because matching tiles around a new opening depends on what your specific slope carries. We survey your roof rather than assuming it is the same as next door’s.
What we check before quoting a Great Cornard roof
On stock of this age the survey is a condition survey as much as a measuring exercise. From outside we look at how far the concrete tiles have weathered, whether they are shedding grit, and how much moss has taken hold on the north slopes and in the valleys. From inside we check the underlay for the brittleness and tearing that old bitumen felt develops, and we look at the battens for decay or undersizing, because a new unit is only as sound as the timber it fixes to. Where either is failing around the intended opening we deal with it as part of the job rather than fixing a good window to tired battens.
Pitch gets measured too. A fair amount of the post-war building here sits at a modest slope, and where a loft is being made habitable the escape opening that Part B wants and the minimum pitch a unit is rated to can pull against each other on a shallow roof. Better to find that with a gauge on the slope at survey than to discover it once the plasterer has been in. Access, by contrast, is usually the easy part on this estate: generous plots, driveways and open frontages mean scaffold and materials rarely cause the trouble they do in the old market towns.
Which services suit Great Cornard roofs
- Pitched roof skylight installation with a flashing kit profiled for your concrete interlocking tile, because a plain-tile skirt will not seat on a deep tile roll.
- VELUX, Keylite and Roto installation for standard openings, which most of this estate stock takes.
- Energy efficient skylight installation, worthwhile on a loft conversion and on any old rooflight that is now the coldest part of the room.
- Custom skylight design where a conversion or an awkward opening needs a size the catalogue does not carry.
Around Sudbury
We cover the town and the villages around it regularly. See Sudbury next door, Long Melford just north, and Nayland down the Stour valley. The full list is on areas we cover.
Getting a price in Great Cornard
Every job is surveyed on the roof and priced once in writing. The figure holds unless the specification changes. Ten-year workmanship guarantee on every installation, installed to current Building Regulations, fitted by installers with 25 years in the trade.
Request a fixed quote for a rooflight in Great Cornard. A photograph of the roof from the garden and one up through the loft hatch tell us a lot about the condition before we come out.
My Great Cornard roof is the original concrete tile. Is that a problem for a rooflight?
Not in itself, but its age changes the job. Post-war concrete tiles weather, become porous and get brittle, so lifting and refitting the tiles around a new opening breaks a few, and matching a fifty-year-old tile from current stock is not always possible. We allow for replacements at survey and flag it honestly on a visible slope. If the covering is near the end of its life anyway, it is worth deciding whether to fit the rooflight and recover the slope together rather than disturbing it twice.
We want to convert the loft on our post-war house here. What does the rooflight have to do?
If the loft becomes habitable, the rooflight usually has to serve two regulations. Part B wants an escape route with a minimum clear opening, positioned so you can reach it from the floor. Part L sets the thermal standard, so the unit needs to be a modern one around 1.2 W/m²K. On a shallower post-war slope those two can conflict, because a larger openable escape window often carries a higher minimum pitch rating, so we resolve both at survey rather than guessing.
Should I sort the whole roof out at the same time?
Sometimes, and we will tell you straight. If your covering has years left in it, we simply fit the rooflight and make good around it. If the tiles have lost their surface, the underlay is brittle and the battens are tired, then disturbing that slope for a rooflight and recovering it separately later means paying to open the same roof twice. On a roof near the end of its life, doing both together is usually the cheaper path over any sensible timeframe.
Our terrace was council-built and the houses look identical. Will ours be the same as next door?
Structurally, very likely, because the estate was built to a small number of standard designs and the rafter layout and pitch repeat across a house type. The covering is where they diverge. Many of these houses have been re-roofed individually since they passed into private ownership, so the tile on your roof can be a different age, colour and profile from the one two doors down. The flashing and any replacement tiles have to match your slope, so we survey your roof rather than reading it off the terrace.
Is access easy on the Great Cornard estate?
Generally yes, and it is one of the simpler things about working here. The estate was laid out with generous plots, driveways and open frontages, so scaffold goes up without the neighbour agreements and street licences that the tight old market towns need, and materials reach the base of the roof easily. That keeps this side of the cost down. The variables here are the age and condition of the covering, not getting to it.
Our rooflight on the estate is old and misted. Can you repair it?
No, we do not repair, reseal or patch rooflights. When a sealed unit has misted, the seal between the panes has failed and the gas fill has gone, and no resealing brings that back; the unit itself is finished. What we do is replace it, and on a fifty-year-old post-war roof that is usually the right moment to fit a modern, warmer unit that will not be the coldest part of the room. We take the old one out, make the opening good, and flash the new unit into your covering properly.
Can we have a rooflight and solar panels on the same slope?
Yes, set beside the array rather than through it. Solar panels are laid out to fill a rectangle on rails fixed into the roof structure, so cutting an opening into the middle means moving panels and rails and dealing with the installer’s warranty. Where the panels are already up, we position the rooflight in the clear roof beside them with a working margin all round for the flashing and for anyone servicing the array later. On a post-war Great Cornard roof there is usually room to do both without disturbing the panels.
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.