If your roof window will not close, work only from inside the room. Push the sash as far shut as it will go, turn the handle to whatever position gives the most grip, and place a bucket and towels beneath it to catch any rain. Keep people and pets clear of the area below. Never climb onto the roof to reach it.
A window that will not pull onto its gasket draws air, and on an exposed Suffolk slope it draws rain with it, close to horizontal in a strong easterly. So it is worth dealing with quickly. But quickly does not mean dangerously. Everything you safely need to do is done from the inside. Here is how to secure it, then what is actually wrong.
Secure it from inside, step by step
- Push the sash to. Ease it shut by hand as far as it will travel. Do not force it hard; if something is jammed you can crack the frame or the glass and make things worse.
- Work the handle. Turn it to the closed or the ventilation-lock position, whichever holds the sash tightest against the frame. Even a partial seal is better than a gaping one.
- Catch the water. Put a bucket directly under the window and lay old towels around it. If water is tracking down the reveal, tape a bin liner below the frame to funnel it into the bucket.
- Clear the space below. Move furniture, bedding and electricals out from under the window. Keep children and pets out of the room if the sash feels loose or the glass is stressed.
- Reduce the draught. If it will not seal at all and weather is coming, tape heavy polythene across the inside of the opening as a temporary internal cover. This is a stop-gap, not a fix.
- Leave the roof alone. Do not go outside with a ladder to push it shut or throw a tarpaulin over it. A wet roof at height in wind is where this goes from an annoyance to an accident. If the opening cannot be secured from inside, call us.
One rule above all the others. Nobody goes on the roof. A stuck sash is a repair-cost problem. A fall from a roof is a different order of thing entirely. Secure the room from below, protect what is under the window, and get it looked at.
Why it will not close: the common causes
Roof windows that stop closing fail in a small number of predictable ways. Three cover almost everything we are called to.
A warped sash
The sash is the opening part that carries the glass. Older units are laminated pine, and where the internal finish has not been maintained, or the room is humid, the timber takes up moisture and moves. A sash that has warped no longer sits flat against the frame all the way round, so however hard you turn the handle, one corner stays proud and the gasket never seals. This is the cause that ends the conversation, and the next section explains why.
A failed catch or handle mechanism
The handle does not just latch. It drives a mechanism that pulls the sash down and clamps it onto the gasket. Inside that mechanism are cams and a locking bar that wear, and the springs and friction pads that hold tension lose their grip over the years. When it goes, the handle turns freely or feels slack and the sash sits against the frame without ever being drawn tight. On a unit up to about twenty years old the hardware is sometimes still available. Older than that and it usually is not, which changes the answer.
A seized or worn hinge
Centre-pivot windows turn on a hinge roughly halfway up each side; top-hung units hinge at the head. Those hinges carry the sash weight through every open and close for years, and they wear, stiffen or seize, especially on a coastal slope where salt drives corrosion into the metalwork. A worn hinge lets the sash drop out of alignment so it fouls the frame; a seized one stops it moving through its proper arc. Either way the sash no longer meets the frame square.
Why a warped sash means replacement, not repair
We do not patch, reseal or rebuild roof window sashes, and there is an honest reason, not a sales one. Once a sash has warped, the timber has physically moved and it will not move back. You cannot plane it flat without breaking the glazing seal and the weathering line, and a new gasket cannot bridge a gap that changes shape with every damp spell.
There is also what the warp tells you. If moisture has moved the sash, the same moisture has usually been working on the frame timber and, outside, on the flashing and the collars beneath. On a window old enough for the sash to have gone, the sealed unit is often blown, the parts are frequently obsolete, and the frame is on the same clock. Fitting a new sash to an old frame, even where a part exists, is money spent on the one component that happens to have failed first while the rest follows behind it.
The clean answer on a warped or seized old window is a new window: new frame, new sash, new flashing kit matched to your covering, and the two collars that stop the cold bridge and the water track. That carries our 10-year workmanship guarantee, where a bodged repair carries nothing. The reasoning is set out on our replace not repair page, and the signs that a window has reached that point are on when to replace a roof window.
What to check while you wait
Two quick, safe checks from inside help us quote before we arrive. Press the bottom rail of the sash with your thumb: if it gives or feels soft, the timber has gone and you are looking at replacement, which our rotten frame page covers. And look at the glass: if it is also misted or the pane is damaged, note that too, because a stuck sash alongside broken glass changes how urgently the opening needs securing.
Photograph the window from inside, and the data plate on the top edge of the sash if you can reach it safely, and send them with your enquiry. The full picture on how these windows are surveyed and replaced is on our VELUX window installation page.
Get it made watertight
If your roof window will not close and the weather is against you, we can assess it quickly and, where it needs replacing, get you a fixed price for a new unit that seals properly and comes with a 10-year guarantee. Secure the room from inside first, keep off the roof, then request a fixed quote and send your photos.
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.