Rooflight and Skylight Installation in Barnham

What we install in Barnham

Flat roof extension rooflights, and a good proportion of them go in as part of building work rather than afterwards.

The village has grown considerably and it keeps growing, which means a steady flow of extensions, conversions and refurbishments. The rooflight is one item on a longer list.

Doing it during rather than after

The single most useful thing on this page, and it saves money on almost every project.

Where an extension is being built, the kerb can be formed to suit the unit rather than the unit made to suit a kerb somebody built without measuring. The structure can be designed to carry it. The insulation line and the vapour control layer can be continued properly at the frame. And there is no finished ceiling to make good.

Adding a unit to a completed room is entirely possible and it costs more, disturbs a room that has just been decorated, and constrains the position to what the finished structure allows.

When to bring us in

Earlier than most people do, and it costs nothing to ask at that stage.

Ideally when the extension is being designed, so the kerb detail and the structure account for the unit. Practically, before the deck is covered, which is the last moment the kerb can be formed without rework.

The worst moment is after the ceiling is boarded and skimmed, which is when a great many people first think about it.

Who builds the kerb

The question that most often falls between two trades, and it is worth settling in writing.

A builder can form the kerb and frequently does. What matters is that it is built to the dimensions the unit needs, square, at the right height, and insulated.

We will provide those dimensions and the detail to whoever is building it, and we will check it before ordering. What we will not do is order a unit against a kerb nobody has measured.

Who is responsible for what

Worth setting out plainly, because a shared job with unclear boundaries is where problems live.

On a project where somebody else builds the kerb and the deck, we are responsible for the unit, its fixing and its flashing to the covering. The kerb, the deck, its falls and its covering are the builder’s.

Where a fault later turns out to be the kerb or the deck, that is not a rooflight failure and it is not ours to put right. Saying so at the start, rather than in the middle of a dispute, is fairer to everybody.

The alternative: we do all of it

Frequently simpler on a smaller job, and worth considering.

Where we form the kerb, fit the unit and complete the flashing, there is one party responsible for the whole detail from the deck upward and no boundary to argue about.

On a project where a builder is already on site with a scaffold up, that is not always sensible. On a standalone job it usually is.

Sequencing with a covering

The detail that decides whether a flat roof job goes smoothly.

On a new deck, the kerb is formed, then the unit is fitted or its upstand set, then the covering is dressed up the kerb and terminated. Doing it in that order gives a proper termination.

Covering the deck first and cutting into it afterwards gives a patched termination on a covering that was continuous. It is a worse detail and it is what happens when nobody agrees the order.

Sequencing with a re-roof

The same principle on a pitched roof, and the saving is larger.

Where a roof is being stripped and relaid, a roof window fitted during that work costs a fraction of one cut in afterwards. The covering is off, the battens are being replaced, and the flashing is integrated as the roof goes on.

Where somebody tells us a re-roof is planned within a couple of years, we will say to wait. It is the clearest example of advice that costs us a job now and is obviously right.

Sequencing with a kitchen

The commonest clash on these projects, and it is about dust rather than construction.

Cutting a ceiling opening produces a great deal of dust, and doing it after a kitchen is installed means protecting everything and cleaning afterwards.

Ceiling opening first, kitchen second, is the order that works. It is obvious once said and it is regularly done the other way round.

Talking to the other trades

A practical habit rather than a technical point.

Where a builder, an electrician and a plasterer are all involved, five minutes of conversation about who needs what and when saves a return visit. The electrician needs to know a cable is wanted at the opening before the ceiling closes.

We will have that conversation directly rather than through the customer, where they are content for us to, because messages passed along tend to lose the dimension that mattered.

Building Control on a larger project

Worth clarifying, because it is frequently already in hand.

Where an extension is being built, the whole project is notifiable and the rooflight is part of it rather than a separate notification. The builder or the customer’s agent generally holds that.

Where the rooflight is a standalone new opening, we notify. Which of the two applies is established at the start so nobody assumes the other has done it.

Snagging, and who comes back

A point worth settling on a shared job before anybody leaves site.

On a project with several trades, a small defect noticed afterwards can belong to any of them, and the customer should not have to work out which. It is worth agreeing at the outset who they ring.

For anything relating to the unit, its fixing or its flashing, they ring us and we come back. Where it turns out to be the deck or the kerb we will say so plainly and tell them who it belongs to rather than leaving them to guess.

The order the whole thing runs in

1. Design, with the unit and the kerb dimensions agreed.
2. Structure and deck, built to those dimensions.
3. Kerb formed, checked and insulated.
4. Cable run to the opening, if a powered unit is possible.
5. Unit fitted and flashed, covering dressed and terminated.
6. Ceiling closed, insulation and vapour control continued at the frame.
7. Plastering, then decorating, then the kitchen.

Every step in that list is cheaper in that position than in any other, and the last three are the ones most often done in the wrong order.

The village stock

Concrete interlocking tile on trussed roofs across the estates, with older clay tiled properties around the original village.

Ordinary work: widths between members, the right flashing kit for the profile, and a kerb measured rather than assumed.

The three guides are trussed rafters, flashing kits and roof coverings and what is a builders kerb.

Storing a unit before it is needed

A small practical service that matters more on a building project than people expect.

Made to size units have a lead time, so on a project they are frequently ordered well before the deck is ready. A large glazed unit standing in a garden or a half built room for a month is a unit at risk.

We hold them until the site is ready and deliver on the morning they go in. It costs nothing and it removes the commonest way a unit gets damaged before it is ever fitted.

Delays that are not ours

Worth being honest about on a shared project, because it affects a date we have given.

Where our work follows somebody else’s, a slip in their programme moves ours. A deck that is a fortnight late is a rooflight that is a fortnight late, and nothing about our part has changed.

We will say so rather than absorbing it quietly or blaming the weather, and where a made to size unit has already been ordered we will store it rather than delivering it into a building site.

The newer housing

A growing share of the village and it comes with its own questions.

Engineered roof components, a continuous air barrier and a designed ventilation strategy for the dwelling, none of which exist on an older house.

What all of that means for an opening is on the Southwater page, where modern construction is the dominant condition.

Inland on the plain

The environmental position, and it is mild.

Well back from the coast with development and farmland between, so the salt question does not arise and standard architectural coatings hold up over a normal service life.

Wind loading is ordinary except on the most exposed plots at the edge of the village. We will specify standard where standard is right.

Access during a build

Frequently easier than on a standalone job and occasionally harder.

Easier because a scaffold is already up and there is somewhere for materials to go. Harder because a working site has other trades, deliveries and a programme, and a day that suits us may not suit the site.

It is agreed with whoever is running the project rather than with the household alone, which avoids two trades arriving for the same morning.

What the survey establishes

• Whether the rooflight is standalone or part of a larger project.
• Who is building the kerb, and to whose dimensions.
• Where the boundaries of responsibility fall between trades.
• Whether Building Control is already notified for the project.
• Whether a cable can be run before the ceiling closes.
• What order the trades are working in, and where we fit.

Building Control

A new opening is notifiable, so we notify Arun District Council or an approved inspector and the completion certificate comes back to you. Keep it. It is what a solicitor asks for when the house is sold.

Where the line falls between a new opening and a replacement is on do flat rooflights need Building Control.

Permitted development

There is no designation of consequence here, so most rooflight work is permitted development, subject to the projection limit above the plane of the roof and nothing forward of the principal elevation.

On newer estates it is worth checking whether a planning condition removed permitted development rights when the development was approved, which is common and which owners are frequently unaware of.

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.