Skylights & Rooflights in CawoodFor riverside cottages, farm conversions and quiet village roofs

Cawood is a village on the Ouse, about 10.1 road miles south of York, with a long history and a roofscape to match.

The village has an old gatehouse from its days as an archbishop's residence, a bridge across the river and a core of brick houses under clay pantiles. Around that core are cottages that have been extended over the years, outbuildings turned into homes, and later houses built along the roads leading out. It is a small place, and the mix of roofs on a single street can be wide.

That variety is why we survey before we suggest anything. A roof with pantiles needs a different flashing from one with slate or concrete tiles. An old cottage may have rafters that are not quite regular. A converted barn may have a deep section and a high pitch. We look at what you have and design the opening round it.

Clay pantiles are lovely to look at and awkward to cut round, so the flashing needs as much care as the window itself.

A pantile has a wave in it. A standard flat flashing would leave gaps along the lower edge, so a kit shaped to the profile is used instead. It moulds to the curve, and the tiles either side are fitted back so the roof reads as one surface. On an old roof the tiles may be brittle, so we lift them gently and keep the sound ones for the finish.

Some of the clay tiles are old and the same pattern is hard to find. We keep a note of how many are needed to refit and tell you if we need to match any, so there are no surprises in the quote. A roof window on a pantile slope looks best when it sits neatly between rafters and keeps the courses straight. The battens we cut to form the opening are replaced with treated timber, and the underlay is lapped so any water that does get past the tiles runs clear of the frame.

Cawood used to answer to Selby District Council, and since April 2023 North Yorkshire Council handles its planning.

If you remember dealing with Selby, it is now North Yorkshire Council you deal with. On a house, a rooflight is usually permitted development provided it keeps inside the conditions in the planning permission guide on this site. A flat needs consent. A listed building needs listed building consent before the roof is touched, and there are listed buildings in and around Cawood.

Older village centres sometimes sit inside a conservation area, where an Article 4 direction can remove permitted development on particular streets. The council confirms this, and the quickest way is to ask them with the address in hand. Where a front slope is in question, a slim conservation rooflight is the usual choice.

The same thinking applies to any building next to a listed one. Even if yours is not listed, a neighbouring one may affect what the council wants to see, so mention it when you ask. A short, honest email with a photograph of the slope usually gets a clearer answer than a general enquiry.

In a village with listed neighbours, we would rather you asked the council one question too many than one too few.

From a survey in Cawood

Villages like Cawood hold plenty of buildings that began as something else and now serve as homes.

A converted barn or stable usually has a deep roof, with generous headroom and a lot of timber. Light is often the main wish: a big room, a high ceiling and not enough glass. A row of roof windows or a lantern can transform it. A cottage that has been extended may have a newer rear section with a lower roof, where a flat rooflight brings in what the old walls kept out.

The structure comes first. Old timbers may need strengthening before a larger opening is cut, and insulation in a conversion is often thicker than in a standard loft, which affects the depth of the frame. The roof window installation page covers how we deal with it.

Barn roofs are also where the choice of glass matters, and each one is different. A big sloping area facing the sun can overheat a room if the glass is wrong. We talk about the orientation and the glazing specification at the survey, so the finished room is bright without being uncomfortable.

Where a whole row of rooflights is wanted, the spacing is worked out from the rafters rather than from the drawing alone. Rafters on older buildings are not always on a regular grid, and a window that sits half on a timber looks wrong from inside. Setting the openings out on the day, with you in the room, avoids that.

A kitchen extension on an older house gives you space, and a rooflight gives it daylight in the places the garden doors cannot reach.

Because lanterns usually stand more than 150mm above the roof plane, one added to an existing roof can call for an application, or at least a written answer from the council. A lantern drawn into the plans for a new extension is judged along with the rest of the build. A flat rooflight sits lower and is simpler. We talk through which route is likely to apply before you commit.

The details below the glass matter as much as the glass. The upstand is built and insulated before the rooflight goes on, and we photograph it before it is closed in. Our roof lantern installation page explains what a lantern involves.

In an older house, an extension is often where the light problem is worst, since a new room built against thick old walls can end up with only the garden doors to see by. A lantern also helps with warmth in winter, because the sun reaches further into the room, which is a real gain in a place with solid brick walls.

It also matters where the lantern sits. Centred on the room it looks balanced from the garden and from the kitchen table, but a room often has a cooker run or a bank of cupboards that make a centred position awkward. We put the lantern where the light does most good and check it against the layout of the units before the opening is cut.

In a small place, a roof open to the weather is something the whole street notices.

That is why the roof is made safe every evening and you hear the plan before the first tile moves. We cover your floors, stairs and furniture, screen off the area we are working in, and take the waste away when we leave. One team stays with the job, so each morning begins with people who already know the house.

The final walk-through hands you the product details, the maker's warranty, our 10-year workmanship guarantee and, if the work needed it, the Building Control paperwork. We also point out where the flashings, upstands and trimmers are, so you know what is behind the plaster. Keep the photographs with the house deeds: they are useful if you ever sell, and they answer a surveyor's questions about the work in a minute.

The survey is free, and we come to you.

We study the roof from outside and the room from inside, go through the planning position with you, and follow up with a written quote that gives every cost its own line, with a plan for each day of the work. We also work in Riccall, Selby and Escrick. The form below or a WhatsApp message gets things moving.

A river village can be hard to reach when the road is busy or a lane is narrow, so tell us where visitors usually park. We would rather agree a spot for the van and the glass before the day than ask a neighbour to move a car at eight in the morning.