Skylights & Rooflights in SelbyFor abbey-town terraces, railway streets and the estates beyond

Selby is one of the larger towns in our area, and its housing runs from Victorian brick near the centre to estates built much later.

The town grew around its abbey and the River Ouse, and the railway brought more homes. Close to the middle you find brick terraces with slate or tile roofs, many with a back addition that holds the kitchen. Further out come inter-war semis, then the post-war and later estates, where roofs are lower in pitch and covered in concrete tiles. Selby is about 13.7 road miles south of York.

That history decides the right glass. A terrace wants something modest and well flashed. A 1960s semi has space for a proper loft room. A newer house may simply have one dim landing that needs help.

Because Selby has a working market and a busy centre, many of its streets are narrow and lined with parked cars. We think about access before the job starts, including where a ladder or tower can stand and how materials reach the back of a terrace with no side passage.

In a Selby terrace, the room that suffers most is usually the one in the middle, with a wall on either side and a back addition beyond it.

A back-addition house puts the kitchen in a narrow wing, and the sitting room or dining room next to it loses its daylight. Where there is a flat or low-pitched roof over that wing, a small flat rooflight can bring light into the middle of the house. Where a pitched slope sits over a landing or a bathroom, a roof window or a sun tunnel does the same job.

Slate on a Victorian terrace can be brittle after a century and more of weather. We lift it by hand, set aside the good pieces to go back round the new window, and match any that break. Newer tile is easier, and the job moves faster, but the flashing still has to fit the profile.

A terrace roof is one continuous run shared with the neighbours, so we take care on the party side of the work as well and keep scaffold within your own boundary where we can.

Selby District Council no longer exists, and North Yorkshire Council now answers every planning question in the town.

A Selby house will normally get its rooflight as permitted development, and the conditions are laid out in our planning guide. A flat or maisonette has no such right and needs planning permission. A listed building needs listed building consent, and Selby has listed buildings in and around the abbey area, so it pays to check if your street is close to it.

If your house is in or near the town centre conservation area, the council can tell you whether anything extra applies to your street. We would rather you asked before the glass is ordered than after.

The semis around Selby built before and after the war have generous loft space, which tends to become a bedroom, a study or a children's room.

Two roof windows side by side on the rear slope are the usual answer, because they light the whole room evenly and leave the front of the house looking as it always did. A centre-pivot window suits a steep roof, and a top-hung one gives a better view out when you sit. We trim the rafters, support the opening and insulate around the frame before the lining goes in.

Where the house has two full storeys below, escape from a new loft room has to be by a protected stair and never by the window. Selby semis are mostly built that way, so this is the first thing we check, and your building control body will want to see it. Our roof window installation page goes into the detail.

The loft that works best is planned from the staircase upwards, with the window as the last detail and not the first.

From a survey in Selby

Selby has plenty of homes where a kitchen has been pushed out into the garden, and the end nearest the old house is often left dim.

Underneath a flat rooflight goes a raised, insulated kerb, normally 150mm or higher above the finished roof surface once the covering is on. A lantern is taller and brings more light into the middle of the room, though it is a larger piece of work. If the flat roof is old, we look at its structure and covering first and tell you whether it should be renewed as the opening is made.

Position counts for a lot in a long, narrow kitchen. A single rooflight over the cooking end will not help the dining end, so we often suggest two smaller ones, or one lantern long enough to reach across both.

Some Selby extensions built a few decades ago still carry their first domes, and those are often tired.

A dome that has gone brittle and yellow, a unit that has misted between the panes, or a patch of staining on the ceiling by the frame all say the same thing. If the frame and kerb are in good order, new glass can often go into them. Where they are not, we rebuild the kerb or upstand as part of the new installation, so the new unit has a sound base. Our flat roof rooflights page sets out what the replacement involves.

Extensions of that age sometimes have a roof structure lighter than today's lantern or glazed rooflight would like. We check the joists under any opening, and if they need a stronger trimmer or a doubled member, it is shown on its own line in the quote rather than appearing later as an extra.

A rooflight job is short on the roof and longer in the rooms below, and that is where the care is needed.

Protection goes down over floors and stairs, the room is screened, and the roof is closed in and weathertight each evening. Waste goes away with us and one team does the whole job. The hidden work, from trimmers to flashings, is photographed and handed over with the makers' warranties, our 10-year workmanship guarantee and the Building Control paperwork where the work was notifiable.

Use the form below, tell us about the room, and we will come and look.

Selby is easy to reach from the A19 and the A63, and the survey itself usually takes under an hour once we are on site. We measure, look into the loft where there is one, check the ceiling below and talk through the options with you. The survey is free and ends with a written quote. It includes a plan for each day of the fit.

Before you book anything else, it helps to decide what the room is for. A bedroom wants a window that opens and a blind; a landing wants only light. Knowing that shortens the survey and the quote. We also work in the villages around Selby, including Brayton, Thorpe Willoughby and Barlby. If you only need the sealed glass replaced in an older unit, see our misted and failed rooflights page.

If several people share the house, it helps to say who is at home during the day. We can then plan the noisiest part of the work, the cutting of rafters and removal of the old ceiling, for the times that suit the household best.

Pets and young children are worth a mention too. We can screen the work area and keep the ladder and tools out of reach, and knowing in advance whether a dog needs shutting in another room saves a disrupted morning.