Skylights & rooflights in Newhaven

Ask a homeowner in Newhaven what they want from a new rooflight and the answer is usually a room, not a product. The loft that was boarded for storage and now needs to be a bedroom. The stairwell that runs from hall to first floor with one small window at the bottom. The kitchen extension at the back whose flat roof is the only part of the house that could take daylight.

Each of those spaces points to a different kind of unit. Under a pitched roof the loft is lit by a window built into the slope itself. A landing or an inner hallway with no outside wall is a job for a sun tunnel or a small flat rooflight above the stair. A flat-roofed extension can take a large fixed rooflight, a roof lantern or an opening unit that lets the room vent in summer.

The loft is the room that raises the most questions. Fire escape is the part people ask about: a loft window can serve as the way out only when the loft floor is within roughly 4.5 m of the ground. On a bungalow or chalet bungalow that works. On a two-storey house the loft needs a protected stair instead, and the window is there for light and air. We say which applies to your house at the survey, before you commit to a layout.

Size is the other early decision. A bigger window is not always a brighter room. A tall, narrow unit that runs up the slope often lights a loft better than a wide one set low, and it leaves more of the sloping wall for furniture. Where you want to open the window for air, roof windows and electric and opening rooflights give you a choice between a manual handle and a remote.

Choosing between a lantern and a flat rooflight

On a flat-roofed extension the real choice is usually between two shapes. They suit different rooms and different budgets of headroom, so it helps to see them side by side.

Our pages on roof lanterns and flat roof rooflights go into sizes and glazing options. If the room is a dark landing rather than an extension, sun tunnels often do the job without touching the structure around the stairs.

Where we need to cut a new opening, the rafters either side have to be trimmed and a header fitted so the load goes round the hole. Because the timbers carry the roof, cutting into them is never a cosmetic job. We cover the rules in the Building Regulations guide.

Pitched roofs bring their own questions. A slate or clay roof needs the new window's flashing kit to match the covering, and the lead or aluminium dressings have to lap the tiles correctly so water runs over them and not under. A concrete tile roof is heavier and the batten spacing can differ. A window cut into the wrong spot can leave a tile course that cannot be laid properly, so we mark the position on the roof, not on the plan alone.

Flat roofs get the same treatment. The membrane around an existing kerb tells us whether the roof can simply be dressed back to a new upstand or whether more of the covering has to be lifted. We say which in the written quote, so the survey gives you one figure and not a list of maybes.

Newhaven sits where the River Ouse has cut through the South Downs. That geography matters for paperwork. Most Newhaven addresses answer to Lewes District Council for planning. The park boundary lies a little over half a kilometre from the centre, and a house on the far side of it deals with the National Park Authority instead. Check the address before you assume which council you are dealing with.

There are two conservation areas in the town: Newhaven (Church Hill), designated in 1989, and Newhaven (Denton), designated in 1992. Church Hill is the nearer to the centre. Living in one, by itself, leaves your household rights over rooflights as they were. For Newhaven, Lewes District Council's published list of Article 4 directions includes one that deals with change of use, not roofs, so we cannot tell you from a desk whether your own roof is affected. Ask the council, and read our planning permission guide for the general rules. If your house is listed, listed building consent is a separate step.

Building Control is the other half. Lewes District Council runs its own Building Control team directly for the town, with a registered building control approver as the private option. Which of the two routes applies to your job is written into the quote.

The practical effect for you is a short list of questions to settle before the survey. Is the house listed? Is it inside either conservation area, or on the park side of the boundary? Has an earlier planning permission left a condition on the roof? Your council can answer all three, and Lewes District Council's planning team is the place to ask. We build the answers into the written quote so the paperwork does not hold up the date.

If you live in a flat, the roof is probably not yours to change. Read about flats, leases and shared roofs before you plan anything: the freeholder has a say, and a flat is treated differently from a house at the planning stage.

A rooflight is only as easy to fit as the route to the roof. In a harbour town with terraces, back lanes and houses close to the pavement, that route is rarely the same twice. A detached house with a drive may take a tower in front. A terrace may need a scaffold lifted over the back garden wall. A cramped back garden may call for a mobile platform.

Our access plan deals with this before work starts. You get it as one written page with your quote. It names the way up to the roof, says who applies for a scaffold licence or bay suspension, and covers what the neighbours hear and how the Building Control side is dealt with. Scaffold on a Newhaven pavement or road needs a licence from East Sussex County Council as highway authority, and we put that application in. The licences and suspensions guide walks through the process.

Before anyone steps on the roof, we walk it from the ground and from inside. We note where the loft hatch is, how far a ladder can safely reach, where scaffold ties can be fixed into sound walls, and what is stored in the loft that must be moved. Surprises on a roof job can usually be spotted at the survey, and the plan is written to remove them.

The forecast matters on a harbour-side roof. An opening cut into the slope has to be closed against rain before we leave, so the plan allows for a dry fallback if conditions turn. If you want the details of what happens on the day, get in touch and we will talk it through before you book anything.

Some enquiries from a town like this are about a unit that is already there: a roof window that has misted between the panes, a flat rooflight that has gone brown, a lantern with a frame that has started to move. Once the sealed glass has failed there is nothing to treat. What follows is a new unit, and the misted and failed rooflights page shows what we look for when we judge a failed seal.

On a Newhaven pitched roof, the limit for a new roof window is 1.4 W/m²K, or Window Energy Rating band B. A flat rooflight or lantern on an extension is held to 2.2 W/m²K. Reglazing a frame that is still sound sits outside those controls. The survey tells you which of the two your unit is.

Older units fail in recognisable ways. A misted roof window shows a cloudy film between the panes that no cleaning shifts. A flat rooflight with a crazed acrylic dome lets in less light every season and can crack in a cold snap. A timber frame on an old window may have gone soft at the bottom rail, where water sits. In each case the unit is at the end of its life and the cost of a new one is better spent than any attempt to patch the old.

Where we replace a window with the same size opening, the job is straightforward: the old unit and its flashings come out, the kerb or surround is checked, and the new one goes in with fresh flashings. Where the old opening is awkward, an upgrade to a larger or better unit is a quote we can write. Energy efficient rooflights are the usual choice when a replacement is also a chance to cut heat loss from a loft room.

Your quote is a fixed written figure after a free survey. What changes it is the size of the opening, the number of units, how hard the roof is to reach and the glazing you choose; our costs page sets out the factors. Every installation carries our 10 year workmanship guarantee, written up on the guarantee page. When you are ready, book a survey, or return to the main page for skylights and rooflights across Brighton & Hove.