Skylights & rooflights in Felbridge

In a place like Felbridge, the job usually comes down to a handful of rooms. The village holds two very different kinds of building: the Victorian Gothic church of St John, dating from the 1860s, and the sheltered housing at Whittington College, which is mainly bungalows. The bungalow is the more useful place to start, because its dark rooms are the ones a rooflight is best placed to help.

The bungalow with a dark middle

A bungalow is usually wide and shallow. The rooms at the front and back have windows, but the hall, the bathroom and sometimes the kitchen sit in the centre of the plan with nothing but a ceiling above them. That is where a sun tunnel earns its place. A tube runs from a small dome on the roof down to a diffuser in the ceiling, passes through the loft space, and brings daylight into a room that would otherwise need the lights on at noon. You can read more about how they are fitted on our sun tunnel page.

Where the room is larger, or the ceiling is a proper pitch with roof space above it, a roof window gives a view as well as light. Bungalow roofs are often low enough that the glass sits within easy reach of the room below, which makes opening units useful for ventilation in a bathroom or a kitchen.

Bathrooms in a bungalow deserve a word of their own. A compact plan can leave a bathroom with no outside wall, and an extractor fan only deals with the damp, not the gloom. A small opening roof window or a tube with a fan beside it handles both, and the choice comes down to what sits above the ceiling: a clear run of loft, or a rafter that has to be avoided.

The landing, the loft room and the extension

In a two-storey house, the dark spot is often the landing. A stairwell with one small window on the half landing leaves the upstairs corridor dim, and a rooflight above the stair void is the neat answer, provided the roof structure above it allows the opening. We survey the void and the roof timbers before we promise anything, because the stair headroom and the position of the rafters both limit where an opening can go.

Loft rooms are the other common request. A bedroom or study under the slope needs windows in the roof itself, and the choice is between a roof window that follows the pitch and, where the structure suits it, something larger. Our roof window page sets out the types, and our VELUX page covers the branded range, including how the size codes work.

Rear extensions complete the list. A flat-roofed kitchen extension with a plain ceiling feels deep and flat. A roof lantern or a pair of flat roof rooflights lifts the whole room, and which of the two suits depends on the ceiling height you have and how much of the glass you want to see from inside.

Where the roof has been re-covered at some point, the tiles or slates around any old unit matter. A previous installer may have used a flashing kit made for a different covering, or filled the gap with sealant, and the edges of the opening tell us how the earlier work was done. We note this on the survey sheet and it goes into the quote.

Pitch matters as much as covering. A shallow roof sheds water slowly, so the flashing at the head and sides of a new window has to be formed with care, and the choice of unit is narrowed to those rated for the angle. A steeper roof is more forgiving on the water but harder to work on, which feeds straight into the access plan described further down this page.

On a flat roof, the questions change. We look for the upstand, the falls, and the condition of the existing membrane around the opening, since a new kerb has to sit properly in the surface that surrounds it. Sometimes a flat roof is in good order and the rooflight simply fits. Sometimes the area around the opening needs to be reformed, and the written quote says so in plain terms before you agree anything.

Our flat roof rooflight page covers the kerb options, and our energy efficient rooflights page explains what the glazing choices do to the warmth of the room beneath.

Felbridge falls under Tandridge District Council for planning. Building Control in the area is handled through the Southern Building Control Partnership, which covers Tandridge, Reigate and Banstead, and Mole Valley. You do not have to work out which council office to contact, because that part is ours.

On the planning side, we cannot honestly tell you from a desk whether a particular house in Felbridge is free of special restrictions. The national register shows an Article 4 direction area within a kilometre of the village, but it does not say what the direction covers, and we have not confirmed whether any conservation area applies at your address. Because of that, we do not list any here. The sensible route is to check your own address with Tandridge District Council, and our planning guide explains what to ask them and how to read the answer.

For a church building, or any listed property, the position is different again, and the consent route is separate from ordinary planning. If your home or building is listed, tell us at the first call so that the survey can be arranged around it.

What happens with the paperwork

St John's church, built in the 1860s, is a reminder that older and special buildings sit alongside the ordinary housing here. If you manage a building of that kind, or live next to one, say so when you first call. It changes what we check before we draw up the quote, and it saves a second visit.

When the work is notifiable, the notification goes in before the job starts, and the survey results feed into it. The roof structure around a new opening, the weathering at its edges and the energy performance of the unit all form part of what the building control body looks at. Our Building Regulations guide goes through the detail, so you can see what is being checked and why.

Access is the part of a roofing job that few owners think about until a quote arrives with an unexplained line for scaffolding. We set it out in a written page, the access plan, which is included in every quote.

For Felbridge, the practical picture is likely to be quite different from a terraced street in the city. Bungalows and detached houses tend to have a side path or a rear garden that a scaffold can reach, and there is often room for a tower or a lightweight mobile platform without involving the road at all. If the scaffold would have to stand on the verge or the road, a licence from the highway authority comes first, and we send in that request. Our scaffold licence guide explains how the process works.

The plan says which route to the roof we propose, who applies for any licence, and what notice goes to the neighbours. For a sheltered housing complex or any managed property, the access plan also records who has to give consent, since the roof may not belong to the person living under it. If you rent or hold a lease, our leasehold guide shows how to check your own position, but always check your lease.

Distance has its own small effect on planning the day. With Felbridge 29.6 road miles north of Brighton and Hove, we book the visit as a full slot, bring the materials the survey called for, and agree the access with you beforehand so that nobody is waiting for a platform or a delivery.

How a survey and install runs

1. Free survey. An appointment is agreed, then we inspect the roof from outside and from the loft and take measurements.
2. Access plan and quote. The route to the roof, the licence position and the fixed price go on paper together.
3. Notification. Building Control is told before the first fixing goes in, where the job requires it.
4. Scaffold or platform. We set up the access that the plan describes and protect the area below.
5. Fit and finish. We remove the old unit, set the replacement in its place and form the weathering around it.

A rooflight or roof window fitted years ago will, in time, start to show its age. The signs are easy to spot from inside: condensation between the panes that no longer clears, a frame that looks tired, or a unit that no longer closes properly. Misting in a sealed unit means the seal has failed, and the answer is to assess the unit and fit a new one. Our misted and failed rooflights page shows what we look for.

A replacement is more than a swap of glass. We check the kerb or the surround, the flashing, and whether the opening is still the right size for what you want. Where the opening suits it, the new unit can sit in the same place, which keeps the work tidy inside and means the ceiling finish is left alone. Where the old unit was undersized, or in the wrong place, we say so, and you decide whether to keep the position or change it.

If the unit above your landing or loft room is an opening one, an electric option can make it much easier to reach, which suits anyone who finds a pole or a handle awkward. Our electric and opening rooflights page explains how they work and what the controls look like.

A 10-year workmanship guarantee backs each job we fit around Felbridge; read the cover on the guarantee page. The next step is a free survey. Ring 01273 282313, message us on WhatsApp on 07880 284133, or use the quote form, and we will arrange a visit. If you want the wider picture of what we do, go back to our Brighton & Hove home page, or read about what changes the price before you call.