Our Services

We install skylights. That is the whole business. Not windows, not doors, not conservatories, not fascias and guttering, and not repairs. Nine services, all of them a hole in a roof with glass in it, done properly.

That sounds like a limitation. It is the opposite. A general roofer might fit eight or ten rooflights a year between re-roofs and gutter work. We fit them every week, on every kind of roof this region throws up: Victorian slate in central Ipswich, 1950s shallow-pitch council stock in Chantry, modern trussed roofs at Ravenswood and Kesgrave, timber-framed cottages inland, and Edwardian seafront property at Felixstowe where the salt eats standard fixings for breakfast.

The nine services

1. Roof lantern installation

The pitched glazed structure that stands proud of a flat extension roof, with a ridge and glazing bars. It is what most kitchen extensions get, it distributes light better than a flat unit across a dull day, and it is heavy enough that the structure underneath needs thinking about properly. We cover kerb heights, ring beams, glazing specification and published prices on the roof lantern installation page.

2. Flat roof skylight installation

A sealed glazed unit sitting almost flush with a flat or near-flat roof, laid to a shallow fall so water runs off. Cheaper and quicker than a lantern, and for a narrow side-return kitchen it is usually the better buy. The whole job lives or dies on the upstand detail. See flat roof skylight installation.

3. Pitched roof skylight installation

The one most people picture: a roof window set into a tiled or slated pitch, flashed into the covering, common on loft conversions and first-floor bedrooms. The critical detail is the flashing kit matching the roof covering, because a plain-tile flashing on a deep-profile pantile is a leak with a date on it. See pitched roof skylight installation.

4. VELUX window installation

VELUX is the brand most people name, and we fit a lot of them, along with Keylite and Roto. We are experienced VELUX, Keylite and Roto installers, and the VELUX window installation page covers how we match the flashing kit to your exact covering and how we handle the Building Control notification for you.

5. Electric skylight installation

Opening rooflights with a motor, a rain sensor and a wall switch or app control. Worth having anywhere the unit is out of reach, and close to essential on a large south-facing lantern where hot air needs somewhere to go at ceiling level. Wiring, sensor position and the difference between chain and rack actuators are on the electric skylight installation page.

6. Energy efficient skylight installation

U-values, g-values, warm-edge spacers, thermal breaks and Part L compliance. If you are replacing units from the mid-2000s you are moving from roughly 2.8 W/m²K to about 1.2, and the room will feel different in January. See energy efficient skylight installation.

7. Commercial skylight installation

Industrial and commercial rooflights: GRP sheet replacement, barrel vaults, factory and warehouse roofs, and ACR[M]001 non-fragility, which matters the moment anyone has to walk on that roof. Port and industrial estate work around Ipswich, Felixstowe and Harwich is genuinely underserved. See commercial skylight installation.

8. Custom skylight design service

Non-standard shapes and sizes: pyramids, multi-ridge runs, units built to a surveyed opening rather than a catalogue size, working around an existing steel or a chimney breast. Longer lead times and individual pricing. See custom skylight design service.

9. Plastic and polycarbonate skylight installation

Domes, vaults and multiwall polycarbonate. Cheaper than glass, lighter, and honest about its limits: it yellows, it scratches, and it does not match glass on thermal performance. There are jobs where it is exactly right, garages, outbuildings, some commercial roofs, and jobs where it is a false economy. See plastic and polycarbonate skylight installation.

Which one do you actually need?

Most enquiries arrive named after the wrong product, which is fine, that is what a survey is for. A rough guide:

• Flat roof, room wider than about 4m, want a statement. Roof lantern.
• Flat roof, narrow side return, budget matters. Flat rooflight.
• Tiled or slated pitch, loft conversion, bedroom. Pitched roof window, VELUX or equivalent.
• Existing unit misting, dripping or draughty. Full replacement. See below.
• Room gets uncomfortably hot in summer. Solar control glazing plus an opening vent, which means electric.
• Odd shape, awkward structure, listed property. Custom design.

If you are not sure, send dimensions and a photograph of the roof through the quote form and we will tell you which product suits before anyone comes out.

Two things that shape every job here

The coast changes the specification

Rooflight systems are sold nationally to one specification, written for inland conditions. Within roughly a mile of open sea at Felixstowe, Harwich, Clacton, Frinton, Aldeburgh or Southwold, chloride from salt-laden air pits standard fixings and wind-driven rain arrives horizontally at the vertical face of an upstand. Grade 304 stainless will stain rust down a frame within two or three winters there. Coastal work gets 316L stainless throughout, marine-specification powder coating, taller upstands and mechanically fixed flashing terminations.

Estuarine locations are a different case and we treat them as one. Woodbridge, Manningtree, Wivenhoe, Shotley and Pin Mill sit on tidal saline water with real wind exposure across open water, but not open-sea salt loading. Upgraded fixings make sense. Full marine specification usually does not, and we are not going to sell it as though the Deben were the North Sea. How this varies by location is set out on areas we cover.

We replace, we do not patch

No repairs, no resealing, no patching, on any of the nine services. A reseal on a failed rooflight costs a few hundred pounds and typically buys twelve to eighteen months. It does not touch the blown sealed units, the perished gaskets or the wet timber in the upstand, which is normally the real problem by the time water shows on a ceiling. Do it three times over five years and you have spent a serious fraction of a replacement while the decay carries on underneath.

What every job includes

• A survey on the roof, not a price over the phone. Structure, fall, covering, orientation, exposure.
• One written fixed price. It does not move unless you change the specification. The costs page publishes the ranges those quotes come from.
• A 10-year workmanship guarantee on every installation, alongside whatever the manufacturer warrants on the unit itself.
• Installed to current Building Regulations, with the notification route explained at survey.
• The detail photographed, not just the finished interior shot. See our work.
• Nothing ordered until it is measured, nothing opened until the unit is in stock. The roof is never opened waiting on a delivery, and it is never left open overnight.

Where we work

Roughly 30 miles from Ipswich, taking in most of Suffolk, north Essex as far as Colchester and the Blackwater, and the Norfolk edge at Diss and Harleston. That covers the open-coast belt from Felixstowe down to Clacton and up to Southwold, the estuary towns including Woodbridge and Manningtree, and inland from Stowmarket to Bury St Edmunds. Full list on areas we cover.

Get a fixed price

Tell us the room, the roof and roughly where you are. We survey, we quote once, and that figure is what you pay. If you want to understand the numbers first, the costs page publishes real ranges for every service on this list, and the guides library covers the technical decisions in depth.

Request a fixed quote for skylight installation in Ipswich, Suffolk or north Essex.

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