Skylights & Rooflights in Holme-on-Spalding-MoorLight for village bungalows, farm-edge cottages and rear extensions

Holme-on-Spalding-Moor sits on flat farmland in the East Riding, and its homes tend to be wide and low rather than tall.

The village is about 22.4 road miles south-east of York. Houses are strung along the roads rather than packed into a tight centre, and plots are often generous. Brick is the common walling, with tiles or pantiles on the roofs. There are older cottages, a good number of post-war bungalows and chalet bungalows, and newer houses added at the edges.

That mix shapes the work. A bungalow with a hipped roof wants light in the middle of the plan. An older cottage may have a small bedroom under the eaves. A family that has built out at the back often has a kitchen that is bright by the patio doors and dim by the old wall. Each of those is a different job, and the survey is where we work out which one you have. Roofs in the village are usually easy to reach, with good access to the garden side of the house, which helps when materials are being carried up.

Take a moment before the survey to look at the roof from the lane and from the back garden. The slope that faces the open fields is often the one you would least want to disturb, and the one at the back is usually where a window can sit quietly. Say which outlook you care about, and the window goes where it spoils it least.

Holme-on-Spalding-Moor falls under East Riding of Yorkshire Council, which is a different authority from the one that covers York.

For most houses a roof window or rooflight on an ordinary roof is permitted development, so long as it meets the height and glazing conditions, which our planning guide for skylights walks through. If you live in a flat or maisonette, or in a listed building, the answer changes, and a lantern that rises well above the roof usually needs a conversation with the council. For a village address, the East Riding authority is the one that gives a definite answer.

Whether a street falls in a conservation area is for the council to confirm, and a listed cottage is a different matter again: any change to its roof needs listed building consent. If you are unsure whether your home is listed, mention it when we visit and we will show you where the council keeps its records.

It costs little to ask the council before ordering anything. At the survey we can tell you which of those questions apply to your roof, so you contact them with the right one rather than a general enquiry.

In a village where the roof is seen across open fields, ask where the glass will be noticed from before you ask where it will fit.

From a survey in Holme-on-Spalding-Moor

A bungalow has the advantage that the roof is only a ceiling away, and that makes the answers simple.

In a single-storey home the loft space is often shallow and little used, which suits a sun tunnel. A small dome is fixed to the roof and a short tube crosses the loft, and a flat diffuser sits in the ceiling of a hall, a bathroom or a utility room. There is no long run, so plenty of light arrives. No one needs to move out of their bedroom while it is done, because the work stays in the loft and on the roof.

Where a bungalow has a room in the roof, or a chalet-style upper floor, roof windows are the better answer. Slope, ceiling height and the position of the rafters decide the size. The choices, from how a window opens to how its lining is finished, are set out under roof window installation.

Many village houses have had a room added to the back, and the side nearest the old house often stays gloomy.

A flat roof over a kitchen or garden room can take either a flat rooflight or a lantern. The lantern rises above the roof and sends light down from several sides. The flat rooflight is lower and plainer. Which suits you depends on ceiling height, joists and how much the lantern would show to neighbours.

We look at what is already on the roof before we quote. A sound, newer covering can be cut and finished round a new upstand. A tired old one is better dealt with at the same time, so you are not fitting new glass to an old roof. See flat roof rooflights and roof lantern installation for the detail.

An older brick cottage has smaller rooms, lower ceilings and often a roof that has been altered more than once.

A bedroom tucked under a pantiled slope can feel shut in, because the only window is at one end. A single roof window set into the slope changes the room, giving daylight from above and a view of the sky. Because a pantile is a curved profile, the flashing has to be chosen to match, so the water runs off the roof rather than finding its way beneath it.

Pantile roofs are a regional feature across this part of the East Riding, and they are lifted and relaid course by course, so the finished roof looks as if nothing had been touched. Replacement tiles are matched for colour and profile where a few are broken in the process.

Old cottages are where the concealed carpentry takes the most care. Rafters may be at odd spacings, and timbers can be softer than they look. We open the roof carefully, trim the rafters properly to carry the load, and photograph the framing before it is lined, so you can see what is behind the plaster.

People here often live between several small places, and we cover them all.

If your home is nearer another settlement, we have pages for Market Weighton, Bubwith and Pocklington. Our approach is the same in each: a survey that costs nothing, a quote in writing and one team doing the whole job. If you want to compare notes with a neighbour who has had work done, the survey can be arranged around when you are at home, including early or late in the day.

A fit in a lived-in village home is organised round the people who live there.

Before we begin you have a plan for the days. Dust sheets go down over the floors and stairs, furniture is moved out of the way or wrapped, and we screen the work area off from the other rooms wherever that is possible. Waste leaves with us. Each evening the opening is closed against the weather, so rain cannot get in and you are not left with a gap in the roof overnight.

The hidden work gets the same attention as the glass. Trimmers, upstands, flashings, membranes and insulation are done carefully and photographed, and the pictures are handed to you when the job is finished.

The survey is free, and it is where the job is really decided.

We go up and look at the roof, then the room below, then the likely planning route. A quote follows in writing, with every item priced separately. Where Building Regulations apply, we arrange the notification. When we finish, you are walked round the work and handed the specification of what was fitted, the manufacturers' own warranties, our 10-year workmanship guarantee and the Building Control paperwork. Photos of the hidden work come with them.

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