A straight admission before anything else. This page does not yet carry photographs of our own completed jobs, and it does not carry case studies or customer names. The business is new. Rather than fill the space with stock imagery of somebody else’s roof in California, or invent a job in Kesgrave that never happened, we have left the placeholders visible and written the page that is actually useful in the meantime.
Photography is being added as work completes, shot the way we think it matters: the upstand, the flashing lap, the fixing detail, the roof at the end of day one when it is watertight but the unit is not on yet. Not only the styled interior shot with the fruit bowl.
Real project photography is being added to this page as jobs complete. Until it is our own work, on our own roofs, nothing goes here. No stock library images presented as ours, no case studies without a real customer behind them.
The types of work we take on
Kitchen extension lanterns
The most common large job. A rear or side extension, a flat roof, and a pitched glazed lantern set on an insulated kerb over the dining end. Typical sizes run from 1.5 x 1.0m up to 3.0 x 2.0m, and above that you are usually into a structural spine or a crane. The work that decides the outcome happens before the glass arrives: ring beam or trimmers, kerb height at the lowest point of the fall, insulation continuous with the roof, covering dressed up and over. See roof lantern installation.
Side-return flat rooflights
Narrow Victorian side returns across Ipswich and Colchester, usually 1.0m to 1.5m wide, where a lantern would be the wrong product and a flush flat unit is the right one. Cheaper, quicker and better proportioned for the space. See flat roof skylight installation.
Loft conversion roof windows
Pitched roof windows into tiled and slated roofs, singly or in pairs, sized for daylight and for Part B fire egress where the conversion needs it. Deep-profile pantile is common right across Suffolk and needs the correct flashing kit rather than the standard one in the box. See pitched roof skylight installation.
Like-for-like replacements
Units from the mid-2000s that have misted between the panes, started tracking water down a glazing bar, or gone draughty round the sash. Where the structural opening is sound this is a single-day job and the cheapest thing on the price list. Where the upstand underneath has been wet for three years, it is not, and we will show you the timber before we go further. See VELUX window installation.
Coastal work
Seafront and near-coast property from Southwold and Aldeburgh down through Felixstowe and Harwich to Frinton and Clacton. Same products, different specification: 316L stainless throughout, marine-grade coating, taller upstands, mechanically fixed terminations. The detail on areas we cover.
Conservation and listed property
Conservation-style units and timber frames in Lavenham, Long Melford, Framlingham, Debenham, Coggeshall, Woodbridge and central Ipswich, always with consent in hand before anything is ordered. Longer lead times, higher unit costs, and a conversation with the conservation officer at the start rather than after a refusal.
Commercial and industrial
GRP sheet replacement, barrel vaults and factory rooflights on industrial estates around Ipswich, Felixstowe and Harwich, including ACR[M]001 non-fragility classification and phased replacement on buildings that have to keep operating. See commercial skylight installation.
How to judge a rooflight installation, ours or anyone’s
Most people look at the finished ceiling and cannot tell a good job from a bad one, which is exactly why bad ones keep getting paid for. Here is what to look at instead. This works on any installer’s work, including ours, and we would rather you knew.
On the roof
- Upstand height at the low point. Measure at the lowest side of the fall, not the high side. Anything under 150mm is short. On an exposed coastal site anything under 200mm is short. This is where the majority of failures start.
- Which way the roof falls. Water should run away from the upstand on every side. If it puddles against a face, the detail is on borrowed time no matter how well it was sealed.
- How the covering terminates. It should be dressed up the full height of the upstand and over the top edge, with laps mechanically fixed or welded, then the frame sitting over that. Water should have to travel uphill twice to get in.
- Visible sealant doing structural work. A bead of mastic as the primary defence is a five-year clock. Sealant is a gasket, not a waterproofing layer.
- Fixing heads. On a coastal property, look for rust bloom around screw heads after two winters. That is grade 304 where 316L was needed.
- Flashing profile against covering profile. A flat-tile flashing on a deep pantile leaves gaps that get filled with mortar or foam. Both are wrong.
From inside
- Reveal squareness. Sight along the reveal. Out-of-square lines usually mean the opening was cut before it was set out.
- Condensation on the reveal in January. A cold line running round the perimeter means the upstand was not insulated continuously with the roof. It gets reported as a leak and it is a thermal bridge.
- Thermal break in the frame. Aluminium without a polyamide break conducts heat straight out and drips onto the worktop in winter. Ask which it is. It costs nothing to ask and the two look identical in a photograph.
- Whether the glass reads tinted. A modern solar control coating cuts heat while keeping light transmission above 60 per cent. If a south-facing unit reads noticeably blue or dark, it is old-generation glass.
In the paperwork
- A stated U-value and g-value for the unit you actually bought, not a brochure range.
- Building Control route named, whether that is self-certification or a local authority notice.
- A workmanship guarantee in writing, separate from the manufacturer’s warranty on the unit, with a stated term.
What we photograph, and why
When the images go on this page they will show the same things every time, because those are the things that decide whether an installation lasts.
- The structural opening, framed and ready, before anything covers it
- The upstand built and insulated, with a tape on it showing the height at the low point
- End of day one: covering dressed over, laps terminated, roof watertight with no unit fitted
- Fixings and isolation washers laid out before they go in, on coastal jobs
- The completed exterior, and only then the completed interior
Interior shots are the ones that sell rooflights and they are the least informative photograph on any installer’s website. A room can look beautiful on handover day and be staining a ceiling by the following February.
Want to see it in person?
Until the gallery is populated, the most useful thing we can offer is a survey where we walk you through exactly what we would do on your roof, pointing at the specific junctions on the specific covering you have. That costs you nothing and it is more informative than a photograph of somebody else’s kitchen.
Prices for every service are published on the costs page, the technical detail is in the guides library, and the full list of what we install is on the services page.
Request a fixed quote and we will come and look at the actual roof.
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.