Skylights & Rooflights in PoppletonDaylight for village cottages, bungalows and deep-plan estate houses

You will find Poppleton about 4.4 road miles north-west of York. It is near enough to the city that its houses are part village and part suburb.

The name covers two neighbouring villages, Upper Poppleton and Nether Poppleton, with the River Ouse running past the second. Older cottages and farmhouses stand near the village greens and churches, and around them the area filled in during the second half of the last century with detached houses, semis and a good many bungalows. There is a railway station on the Harrogate line and a park and ride on the edge, which is part of why the housing here has stayed in steady demand.

For a rooflight, that mix matters. A cottage roof carries clay pantiles or old slate, a 1960s or 1970s bungalow carries concrete tiles on a shallow pitch, and a larger detached house may have several roof slopes and a rear extension of its own.

Poppleton has its share of bungalows, and a roof window can serve the rooms in the roof of one.

Bungalows in villages like this have often had their loft boarded out and turned into a bedroom. Since that floor sits within 4.5m of the ground, a window in the slope can act as the escape route, which is not true of a loft above two full storeys. A chalet bungalow with rooms in the roof is the clearest example, and we still check the size of the opening and the height of the sill before quoting.

Many bungalows here have hipped roofs, which means short slopes. A short slope limits where a window can sit without running into the wall plate, so the position is measured in the loft with a tape before anything is ordered. A window that is slightly narrower and set higher often works better than one pushed low on the slope. On a hipped roof we also check where the hip rafters run, because an opening cut too close to one needs extra framing.

Poppleton lies within the City of York Council area, so planning questions go to York rather than to North Yorkshire.

North Yorkshire is the postal county, yet both Poppletons belong to the City of York Council area, and that council handles planning here. A house can usually take a rooflight as permitted development, provided it meets the conditions in our skylight planning permission guide. Parts of the older village cores may be within a conservation area, and listed buildings need listed building consent. The council confirms which applies to your road.

Flats and maisonettes sit outside that general rule. They have no permitted development rights for this, so a rooflight there needs planning permission, and it is worth asking the council before you commit to a product. Lanterns need the same question asked, since most rise more than 150mm.

A Poppleton postal address says North Yorkshire, but your planning officer sits in York.

From a survey in Poppleton

The estate houses built here through the later twentieth century tend to be deep in plan, and the middle of the house is where the light runs out.

A semi with a rear extension, a kitchen opened into the dining room, and an upstairs landing in the middle of the plan can leave the centre dim at any hour. Estate roofs are usually concrete tile on a modest pitch, which takes a roof window well. Where the dim room has a flat roof over it, a flat rooflight does the same job from above.

The garden-facing slope is normally the one to use. It keeps the glass out of the street view, and where the garden faces south or west it brings in that sunlight too. A blind is worth planning at the outset for a loft bedroom, since a south-facing window can be bright on a summer evening.

Our sun tunnel installation page shows how the tube runs through the roof space, and which diffuser sizes are available for a ceiling.

The cottages near the village greens have thick walls, low eaves and roofs that have been mended and altered many times.

Roofs of that age are rarely perfectly straight. Rafters may be at uneven spacing, a ridge may dip, and the covering may be a mixture of old and newer tiles. A window frame is square, so we measure the opening where it is to go, not from a drawing, and frame it with new timbers that carry the load back to something solid.

Inside, a low ceiling and a deep wall often mean a splayed lining looks better than a square one, because it spreads the light into the room. We form the lining in plaster, so the finish matches the walls around it, and leave it ready for paint.

Sometimes the best answer in a small cottage is the modest one: a single compact window on the rear slope that lights a bedroom or a stair, leaving the front of the house looking exactly as it always has.

A home with children, pets or someone working from the kitchen table does not empty out for a roofer, so the plan is built around the people in it.

Before the roof is touched, we sheet over floors, stairs and furniture and close off the working area with a screen. The written plan says what happens on each day, so you know when the roof will be open and when it will not. Every evening it is made weathertight again, and the rubbish goes with us. The same people do the whole job.

A new rooflight should leave you with documents as well as daylight.

Once the work is finished we sit down with you and go through what has been fitted, with the product details, the manufacturers' warranties and our 10-year workmanship guarantee. A new opening or a whole replacement has to be notified to Building Control, and that notification is ours to arrange, with the certificate passed on to you. A new opening must satisfy the structural and thermal rules, and a roof window in an existing home is expected to reach 1.4 W/m²K or Window Energy Rating Band B.

Trimmers, upstands, flashings, membranes and insulation are photographed before they are covered, and the pictures are handed to you. If you ever sell, they show the next owner what lies behind the plaster.

The same folder holds the guidance on looking after the new window: how to clean the outer pane safely from inside, how to open it for ventilation, and when to expect the seals to need a wipe. Little of it is demanding, and it is written for a household rather than for the building trade, with plain steps and no jargon.

A roof window also changes how a room feels in summer. A pleated or roller blind on the inside, fitted to the frame, keeps a south-facing loft bedroom comfortable, and we can advise at the survey on which blinds suit which window.

Poppleton is among the closest villages to us, and a survey takes little time to arrange.

We have no premises, so the survey happens at your house and costs nothing. The written quote that follows itemises every cost and sets out the working days. Villages close by with pages of their own include Wigginton, Bishopthorpe and Haxby.

The form below is a quick way to describe the room you have in mind, and WhatsApp reaches us just as well.

If you have any earlier paperwork for the house, such as an extension drawing or a roof guarantee, leave it out for the survey. In Poppleton, where many homes have been altered since they were built, it shows us what has already been done to the roof structure.