Rooflight and Skylight Installation in Clapham and Patching

What we install here

Replacements and roof windows, across two small settlements and a scatter of properties on wooded lanes.

The technical work is ordinary for a downland edge village. What takes the planning is getting to the property, and what takes the honesty is telling somebody what a shaded slope will actually deliver.

What a canopy costs in daylight

The thing worth saying before a unit is ordered rather than after it is fitted.

A rooflight works by seeing sky, and a mature canopy over a slope removes most of what it would otherwise see. Under heavy summer leaf the reduction is substantial rather than marginal.

And it is worst at exactly the wrong time. In winter, when the room most needs daylight, a deciduous canopy is bare and the unit performs well. In summer, when the room is most used, it is at its most shaded.

Evergreen is the harder case

A distinction worth drawing when looking at a plot.

A deciduous canopy gives the room a good winter and a poor summer. An evergreen one, and yew in particular, gives it neither. There is no season in which it lifts.

Which means a slope under a yew is a slope where we will say plainly that the money is better spent on a different elevation or a different room. It is a short conversation and a fair one.

Choosing the slope by what is above it

The practical response, and it frequently changes the answer.

On a wooded plot the difference between two slopes on the same building can be considerable, and it is decided by what stands over each rather than by which faces south.

Which means the survey looks up rather than at a compass, and a north facing slope with clear sky above it will outperform a south facing one under a beech.

Tree preservation

A genuine constraint here, and it applies to access as much as to daylight.

Individual trees may be subject to a preservation order, and every tree in a conservation area is protected by a notification requirement. Cutting or lopping either without consent is an offence with a substantial penalty.

Which means a branch removed to get a lorry in, or a limb taken off to let a scaffold stand, is a decision taken in advance with consent rather than by a driver with a saw on the morning.

Branch height on the lanes

The access constraint that catches deliveries out here more than width does.

These lanes are overhung, in places heavily, and a vehicle carrying a made to size unit needs clearance that a van does not. A scaffold lorry needs more again.

The route is driven at survey with height in mind rather than looked at on a map, and where the clearance is genuinely marginal the unit comes in on a smaller vehicle rather than the branches coming off.

Roots, and what a scaffold stands on

The other tree consideration, and it is less obvious.

Standing a scaffold or driving a vehicle over the root protection area of a protected tree can damage it as effectively as cutting a branch, by compacting the ground it depends on.

Where a scaffold has to stand near a substantial tree, boards spread the load and the position is chosen with the roots in mind. It costs nothing and it avoids doing quiet damage that appears three years later.

Leaf litter, and what it blocks

The autumn consequence, and on these plots it is not trivial.

Litter collects around a kerb, in a valley and at every outlet. Water held against a detail is how a sound installation becomes a wet one over several seasons, and a blocked outlet on a shallow deck backs water up.

A clear at the end of each autumn deals with it entirely. On a wooded plot it is worth putting on a list rather than leaving to chance.

Moss and what grows on a shaded roof

The slower version, and it affects the covering rather than the unit.

A slope that never dries out grows moss and lichen, which holds water against a covering and, at a flashing, holds it against the detail.

It is cleared rather than left, carefully rather than with a pressure washer, which on an old clay tile roof does more harm than the moss did. Where a slope is permanently damp that is worth knowing before choosing which one to open.

Two villages, one parish

Worth saying, because they are treated as one and are not.

Clapham and Patching each have their own church, their own small core and their own conservation interest, separated by a stretch of woodland and farmland.

Which means the designation question is answered for a specific address rather than for the parish, and the two cores are assessed on their own terms.

The Downs edge, and wind

The exposure, and the woodland moderates it considerably.

These settlements sit at the foot of the Downs where wind rather than salt is the concern, and the tree cover that costs the daylight also breaks the wind noticeably.

What wind does to a roof and what an exposed schedule requires is on the Washington page. Here it applies to the open plots rather than to the sheltered ones, and the difference between the two is real.

Falling branches

A practical risk on a wooded plot and it is worth a sentence.

A glazed unit under a mature tree is exposed to what comes off it in a gale, and a limb landing on a rooflight is a different event from one landing on a tile.

Which is an argument for a laminated inner pane under a heavy canopy, on the same reasoning as anywhere overhead glazing is exposed to impact. It costs modestly more at order.

What the Clapham and Patching stock asks for

Three conditions apply across the older stock and each is set out elsewhere.

Hand made clay tile and its varying gauge is on Sussex clay peg tile. Flint elevations and where a scaffold ties are on the Poynings page. Lath and plaster is on West Tarring.

Each is established at survey and none of them is what makes this parish distinctive.

Damp in a shaded roof space

A consequence of permanent shade that is worth checking before a unit goes in.

A roof that dries slowly stays damp longer, and a roof space under it runs more humid than one on an open plot. A cold surface in a humid roof space collects water.

What to check, and why the eaves ventilation path matters, is on the Pulborough page. It applies here for a different reason and to the same effect.

Squirrels, birds and a wooded roof space

A finding on properties surrounded by trees, and it is worth mentioning because we see it regularly.

Roof spaces beside mature woodland get visitors, and the evidence, chewed cabling, disturbed insulation and nesting material, is generally in the loft rather than anywhere anybody looks.

It is not our work to deal with and it is worth knowing about, and where an opening is being formed it is a good moment to see what is up there. Nesting birds are protected while nesting, which affects timing rather than feasibility.

Estate land and private lanes

A characteristic of this parish and it affects access.

A good deal of the surrounding land is in estate ownership, and several of the lanes serving properties here are private and maintained by whoever owns them.

Which means permission to bring a lorry along one is a matter for the owner rather than a highway authority, and damage to a surface is somebody’s bill. It is arranged in advance and boards are used where a verge would mark.

Deer and the lanes at dusk

A local reality rather than a technical point, and it affects when a van travels.

These woods hold deer, and the lanes at dawn and dusk carry them. It is a reason our people are told to travel these routes carefully rather than to the minute.

It occasionally affects a start time in winter, when both ends of the working day fall in the risky hours. It is mentioned because it is the kind of thing that explains a five minute delay honestly.

Sap, and what lands on glass

A maintenance point specific to a wooded plot and it surprises people.

Under limes and sycamores in particular, glass collects honeydew through the summer, which is sticky, attracts dust and does not rinse off the way ordinary dirt does.

It wants washing rather than hosing, once or twice through the season. Self cleaning glass helps and does not solve it, and it is worth knowing before somebody concludes their new unit has a fault.

Getting light to the right room

The judgement that matters most on a shaded plot.

Where only one slope has clear sky above it, the question becomes which room that slope serves rather than which room somebody wanted lit.

Occasionally the answer is that the good slope is over a landing rather than a bedroom, and a unit there lights everything opening off it. It is worth walking the upstairs before deciding.

The A27, and the properties near it

The one non-rural condition in the parish.

The road passes close to part of it, and households near it ask about noise. A rooflight is a small area against a whole elevation, so a heavier or asymmetric glass make up helps modestly rather than transforming a room.

Where noise is the main reason for an enquiry we say so plainly rather than selling a specification that cannot deliver it.

What the survey establishes

• What stands over each candidate slope, and whether it is deciduous or evergreen.
• Whether any tree affecting access is protected.
• Branch height along the delivery route, driven.
• Where a scaffold can stand clear of root protection areas.
• The roof space condition, given the shade.
• Whether the lane is public or private, and who maintains it.

Building Control

A replacement into an existing opening is not normally notifiable, though the unit still has to meet the limiting thermal standard. A new opening is, and goes to Arun District Council or an approved inspector.

The thresholds are on do flat rooflights need Building Control.

Permitted development

Outside the two village cores the ordinary rules apply, subject to the projection limit above the plane of the roof and nothing forward of the principal elevation.

Inside them those rights are narrowed. And permitted development says nothing about trees, so where access requires anything to be cut, that consent is established separately and first.

How we quote

A free indicative range by email from photographs, then a survey, then a fixed itemised written price that does not move afterwards. Anything we misjudge at survey is ours to absorb.

What is measured at each step is on the how we price and quote page.

Guarantee

Ten years on our workmanship, on every job, limits written down. The manufacturer stands behind the unit; we stand behind the kerb, the flashing and the making good.

The terms, and the accreditations we do not claim, are on the our guarantee page.