Coastlight Skylights fits and replaces skylights and rooflights in Brighton & Hove and in the towns and villages within 30 miles of the city by road. We work at the top of the house: loft rooms, top-floor flats, stairwells, landings and the flat roofs of rear extensions. Our name for the way we do it is the access plan, and this page explains why.
What we install
Our work covers the full run of daylight products for a home roof. On flat roofs we fit flat roof rooflights, roof lanterns and walk-on rooflights for terraces and lightwells. On pitched roofs we fit roof windows, VELUX units among them, and slim conservation rooflights for older slate roofs. Where a room needs air as well as daylight, we fit electric and opening rooflights. Where a hallway or bathroom has no route for a window, a sun tunnel brings daylight down through the loft.
A good part of our work is replacement. A rooflight that has misted between the panes, a cracked plastic dome or a roof window that has reached the end of its life is taken out and a new unit is fitted in its place, built to current Building Regulations. You can read how we assess an old unit on the misted and failed rooflights page.
Why the access plan exists
Brighton & Hove is a city of tall houses. Regency and Victorian terraces run to four storeys and more. Butterfly roofs are common, set down behind a front parapet with a valley gutter in the middle. Others are mansards with dormers. A large number of houses have been divided into flats, so the roof belongs to a freeholder or is shared between several owners. Plenty of streets are steep, narrow and covered by permit parking.
On jobs like these, the rooflight is rarely the hard part. The hard part is getting a safe platform to the roof and getting everyone's agreement before work starts. That can mean a scaffold licence from the council, a parking bay suspension, consent from the freeholder, a licence for alterations under the lease and notice to the people living below. If nobody owns those steps, they are where a job stalls.
So we plan them at the survey and write them into the quote. The access plan is a written page that sets out the route to the roof, the permissions needed, who applies for each one (for licences and bay suspensions, that is us), the Building Control route and the cost. You get it with every quote, whether the job is a simple rear extension or a top-floor flat on a hill.
How we work
Every job starts with a free survey. We look at the roof covering and the structure, the room below, the opening or the place a new one would go, and the way up from the street or the garden. We ask who owns the roof and whether anyone else in the building needs to agree.
After the survey you get a fixed written quote. It names the unit and the glass, describes the work to the roof and the room, and includes the access plan. The figure is fixed for the work it describes. If the brief changes, we put the change in writing first.
Where the work is notifiable, and both new openings and whole-unit replacements are, we handle the Building Control notification, through the council or a registered building control approver. Every unit we fit meets the Part L energy limits for its type. If planning permission or listed building consent is needed, we tell you at the survey and point you to the planning guide for the detail.
On the day, we work as guests in a shared building. Neighbours below and next door have been told in advance. The stair is protected, the street is kept clear of our materials, and waste leaves with us.
Built for the roof it sits on
A rooflight is only as good as its weathering. A unit that would sit happily on a new-build roof can fail on a city roof if the flashing does not suit the slate, if the kerb crowds a valley gutter, or if a mansard slope is treated like an ordinary pitch. We choose the product and the flashing for the roof in front of us, and we finish the covering around it properly, so the joint between new and old is the strongest part of the job, not the weakest.
The guarantee
Our workmanship carries a 10-year guarantee. It covers the fitting, the flashing and the weathering of what we installed. The manufacturer's warranty on the unit itself is separate and sits alongside it. The guarantee page sets out what is covered, what is not and how to raise a claim.
Where we work
We cover the whole of Brighton & Hove and the area within 30 miles of the city by road, from the coast towns either side to the villages under the Downs. The areas page lists the towns we serve. Every visit is booked in advance, so call 01273 282313, message us on WhatsApp on 07880 284133, or ask for a free survey using the form.
