Skylights & Rooflights in PickeringMarket-town streets, limestone walls and roofs that need a careful hand

Pickering is a market town at the foot of the North York Moors, and its roofs reflect centuries of building in local materials.

It lies about 26.6 road miles north-east of York. The older streets near the centre hold stone and brick houses with pantile roofs, many of them close together and some with the gable end to the street. Beyond the centre the town spreads into inter-war and post-war housing, and newer estates with concrete tiles and plain, regular roof planes.

That mix matters before any glass is chosen. A rooflight on a tightly packed street is as much about access and neighbouring windows as the roof itself. One on a newer house is mostly a question of size and position.

The town also has a steam railway line and a castle, which draw visitors, and some streets near them are busy with parked cars through the day. When a delivery of glass has to arrive on a particular morning, that sort of detail decides how the day is planned.

Planning for Pickering is handled by North Yorkshire Council, which took over from Ryedale District Council in April 2023.

Most house rooflights count as permitted development, and the skylight planning guide lists the conditions. A flat or maisonette needs permission, and a listed building needs consent. Pickering has a historic core, and in a conservation area a local Article 4 direction can take the usual rights away on particular streets. Only the council can confirm whether yours is one.

It is worth sending the council a simple sketch, a photograph of the slope and the approximate size of the window. A short, clear enquiry usually brings a short, clear answer, and it gives you something in writing to keep with the house papers.

Edges of the town may sit close to the National Park boundary, which is handled by a different authority. If you are unsure which side of a line your house falls, one phone call to the council settles it before anything is ordered.

On a Pickering street of shared walls, the neighbour's roofline is part of the conversation as well as the council's.

From a survey in Pickering

Older Pickering houses often have attic space that has never been properly lit.

A steep stone-and-pantile cottage can hide a good room under the rafters. What it lacks is daylight and a way to open a window. A roof window on the back slope supplies both. On a bungalow or chalet bungalow, a roof window can also serve a room in the roof, because it sits within the height the fire-safety rules allow. A full two-storey house follows stricter rules, because an escape window only counts within 4.5m of the ground.

Many Pickering attics also have a knee wall, a short vertical stretch below the slope. Where the ceiling is low, the window can be positioned so its sill is near the floor and the view opens out as soon as you stand beside it. We talk through the height, the angle of the pitch and where the bed or desk is likely to go before the frame position is marked, so the finished room works as well as it looks.

The detail on sizes and types is on our roof window installation page, and our VELUX window installation page covers the most common brand.

The plots on Pickering's edges are often wide enough for a generous rear extension, and a rooflight can do real work in it.

A kitchen-diner with a flat roof is the usual brief. A flat rooflight lights it from above. A roof lantern does the same while adding height inside, but its frame stands proud of the slope, so on a roof that is already built the council often wants an application or a written confirmation. A lantern designed into a new extension is judged together with the extension.

Glass choice matters in a lantern as much as the frame. A south-facing kitchen under a lantern can grow warm in summer, so a solar-control coating on the outer pane, or a blind below, is worth discussing at the survey. A north-facing room wants the opposite, and clear, high-transmission glass makes the most of what daylight there is.

See our roof lantern installation page for sizes and upstands.

Ageing stone and clay roofs reward patience, and they punish hurry.

Pantiles and stone slates can crack when they are lifted, and old mortar bedding may crumble. We lift the covering by hand around the opening, set the good pieces aside and relay them against the new frame. The flashing is chosen for the roof's profile so there are no open gaps beneath the tiles. If the surrounding covering is too fragile to disturb safely, you hear about it before you commit, not once the roof is open.

Moors-edge weather arrives quickly, and a stretch of fine morning can turn to a wet afternoon. That is why we never leave a roof open overnight, and why each stage is sized to finish within the day it starts.

Behind the covering, rafters and battens are checked for rot and woodworm, and any weak timber is dealt with before the frame goes in. A window fixed to sound timber stays square and tight for years.

On a stone or brick house, we also look at where the loft meets the party wall or the gable, because a new frame close to either needs the flashing and the structure dealt with carefully. Photographs from the roof help you see exactly what is going to be altered, and they are shared at the survey if you ask.

Almost everyone in Pickering stays in the house during the work, so the routine is built round that.

Dust is the worry most people raise first. We keep it down by cutting in a controlled way, closing doors to the rest of the house and cleaning as we go, so the end of each day leaves you with rooms you can use.

You are told the plan for each day before it starts. One team does the whole job, and the waste goes with us when we leave. Where a new opening is cut, Building Regulations approval is arranged for you.

Not every job in Pickering adds a window. Some replace an old rooflight that has let the house down.

Extensions from past decades often carry plastic domes that have clouded or cracked, and timber roof windows that have swollen and stuck. Replacing a whole rooflight, frame and glass, is a controlled fitting, so we notify Building Control as part of the job. Only the sealed glass unit changing is not notifiable, but the frame is still checked while it is exposed.

The aim is a unit that meets today's thermal standard for roof windows and rooflights, sits properly on its kerb or in its flashing and opens and locks as it should. If only the glass has failed, the misted and failed rooflights service explains replacing the sealed unit on its own.

We do not hurry the decision. On the visit we look at the frame, the kerb or flashings and the lining. If they are sound, a new glass unit can be enough. If they are not, replacing the whole thing gives a better result, and we say which we think it is and why.

There is no charge for the survey, and the proposal that follows lists every item separately.

When a job is notifiable, we handle the Building Control notification and pass you the paperwork at handover with the makers' warranties and our 10-year workmanship guarantee. You then hold everything a future buyer's solicitor might ask for.

Pickering sits within easy reach for us, which means a survey can usually be arranged without a long wait, and the work itself can be booked around school terms, holidays and the days when the house is empty. Tell us what suits your household and we will plan the fit around it.

We also cover the neighbouring places, including Thornton-le-Dale, Kirkbymoorside and Malton. Use the form below to book a visit.