Rooflight and Skylight Installation in Patcham

What we install in Patcham

Replacements and roof windows, on a mixture of old village properties and twentieth century estates.

The replacements are units fitted decades ago into the inter-war and post-war stock. The roof windows are into lofts, because a good proportion of the older houses here have roofs worth converting and rooms that are dark without them.

Very little of it involves a coastal specification, which is unusual for anything with a Brighton postcode.

Sheltered, and what that saves

The defining condition and it is a genuine cost difference.

The valley has ground rising on either side and a good depth of built development between it and the sea. Salt aerosol does not reach here in the way it reaches Hove, and standard architectural coatings hold up over a normal service life.

Marine grade costs more. Where a household wants it we will supply it and say plainly that the position does not require it, because charging for a specification that does nothing is not something we are willing to do.

What decides a job here instead

With the coastal question removed, the ordinary things become the whole survey.

Whether the roof is cut or trussed. Where the purlins run. Whether a loft room will be a bedroom. What the tile profile is. Whether the property sits in the old village designation.

That is a more straightforward list than almost anywhere else on this coast, and it is why work here is generally quicker to specify and quicker to price.

The old village

A designation over Patcham Old Village, around All Saints and the buildings near it, and it is a genuine survival rather than a fragment.

Inside it the assessment is the ordinary conservation one: what reads from the lane and from the churchyard. Slim flush units on anything visible, standard positions on rear slopes out of view.

How designation narrows permitted development is on article 2(3) land and permitted development.

The tithe barn

One of the largest in Sussex, and it sits at the heart of the old village.

Its significance means that properties around it are assessed on setting as well as on their own appearance, and views toward the barn and the church matter more than views along a street.

It is checked on foot from the places that count. A slope invisible from the road can sit squarely in a view across the farmyard.

Flint in the old village

The characteristic walling, and it decides the scaffold rather than the roof.

Ties go into brick banding, quoins or around openings rather than into flintwork. What that means in practice is on the Poynings page, where flint elevations are the dominant condition.

On a listed building in the village, a fixing into the elevation forms part of the consent rather than being incidental to it.

What sheltered actually permits

The practical upside of the position, and it is rarely spelled out to a customer.

On an exposed coastal roof the product range narrows: large single panes present too much area to uplift, sliding and hinged units take a beating on their ironmongery, and anything with a moving part needs a marine rated specification and more frequent attention.

None of that applies here. A larger glass area, a sliding unit, a walk-on panel over a rear extension, or an opening lantern element are all reasonable propositions in this valley that we would be cautious about a mile and a half south.

So the conversation here is genuinely about what the room wants rather than about what the position will tolerate, and that is not true anywhere else in the city.

Cut roofs, and where the purlins run

The structure across the older stock, and it is accommodating.

Rafters and purlins rather than trusses, so an opening can be trimmed with a designed detail and widths are not fixed by member spacing. The purlin is the constraint, and it is frequently exactly where somebody wanted the window.

Moving the opening a course up or down usually answers it, and where it cannot the opening is trimmed, which is a designed alteration with a cost attached.

The estates on the valley sides

Post-war housing climbing both slopes, trussed and tiled in concrete.

Ordinary work: widths between members, the right flashing kit for the profile, and a kerb under any rear extension that has to be measured rather than assumed.

The two guides that cover it are trussed rafters and flashing kits and roof coverings.

Loft conversions

Common on the older houses here, and the roof usually cooperates.

A purlin roof over an inter-war house has headroom in the middle and a clear span that a window fits into without structural drama. On the post-war trussed stock a room in the roof is a structural design rather than a rooflight job.

Which one is up there is established from the loft hatch in five minutes, and it is worth doing before anything else is discussed.

Escape, which decides the unit

Where a loft room is a bedroom, one window has to serve as escape, and that fixes a clear opening dimension and a sill height.

It is the commonest reason a household’s preferred window is not the one fitted, and it is settled with a tape before anything is ordered. The requirement is on escape windows and habitable loft rooms.

The road, and the noise question

The one environmental factor here that is worse rather than better than the coast.

Two major roads run through and past the valley, and properties near them ask about noise more than anywhere else we work. It is a reasonable question and it deserves an accurate answer.

A rooflight is a small area against a whole elevation, so a heavier or asymmetric glass make up improves matters modestly and will not transform a room. Where noise is the main reason for an enquiry we say that rather than sell a specification that cannot deliver it.

What does help with noise

Worth setting out, since the question comes up so often.

An asymmetric make up, where the two panes differ in thickness, performs better than a symmetric one of the same total thickness. A laminated pane better again. And a unit that seals properly when closed matters more than the glass specification does.

Beyond that, the rest of the elevation is where the gains are, and that is somebody else’s work rather than ours.

Maintenance intervals

The other thing shelter buys, and it is worth quantifying for a customer.

A unit on the seafront wants rinsing twice a year to lift the salt film, and its ironmongery wants checking annually. Neither is optional there and both are jobs somebody has to remember.

Here a rooflight wants cleaning when the glass looks dirty and nothing else. Over twenty years that is a real difference in what owning one involves, and it is a fair thing to put alongside the price.

Trees, and the valley planting

A daylight point, because the older parts of Patcham are unusually well planted.

A rear slope under a mature tree delivers considerably less than the same slope in the open, and in summer, when the room is most used, the gap is at its widest. Valley planting is also older and larger than estate planting elsewhere in the city.

Where that is the case we say so and suggest a different slope or a larger unit rather than letting the result disappoint.

Getting to the roof in Patcham

Generally good and it varies between the two halves.

The estates have drives, side gates and space. The old village has narrow lanes, limited turning and frontages close to the road, where a scaffold occupies rather than stands beside and needs a licence.

Both are settled at survey and the village access is priced as its own line rather than absorbed.

Lanterns, which are viable here

A product worth raising in this valley specifically, because it is one we are cautious about nearer the sea.

A lantern is a pitched glazed structure standing on a kerb, with more bars, more joints and more surface than a flat unit. On an exposed coastal roof that is a lot to maintain and a lot to present to the weather.

Here it is simply a good product on a rear extension, and the questions are the ordinary ones: whether the room has the ceiling height, whether the deck can carry it, and whether the kerb is square enough for the frame to sit true.

The chalk beneath

A local ground condition worth a note, because it affects a scaffold rather than a roof.

The valley floor is thin soil over chalk, and after prolonged rain the surface goes soft while the chalk beneath does not drain the way people expect. A scaffold base needs proper sole boards and spreading rather than being stood on a lawn.

It is a small thing and it is the difference between a stable platform and one that settles unevenly over a fortnight.

The coaching road, and the shape of the village

A piece of history that explains why the old village looks as it does.

Patcham sat on the road into Brighton, and the buildings along it were built to face that road tightly, with long plots running back. The result is frontages close to the highway and rear elevations that are genuinely private.

For a rooflight that is a good arrangement: the front is the constrained elevation and the back is largely unseen, which is the clearest division between viable and not that any of our designated areas offers.

What the survey establishes

• Whether the property sits in the old village designation or the setting of the barn.
• Whether the roof is cut with purlins or trussed.
• Whether any loft room is or will be a bedroom.
• The tile profile on the estate stock.
• What planting overhangs the slope.
• Whether road noise is the real reason for the enquiry.

Building Control

A roof window into a loft is notifiable to Brighton and Hove City Council or an approved inspector. Where the room is a bedroom, one window may have to serve as escape, which fixes its clear opening and its sill height before anything is ordered.

Those dimensions are on escape windows and habitable loft rooms.

Permitted development

On the estates most work is permitted development, subject to the projection limit above the plane of the roof and nothing forward of the principal elevation.

In the old village those rights are narrowed and a visible slope needs an application. Which applies to a specific address is established before a unit is specified, because it changes the product and not only the paperwork.

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.