Electric and Opening Rooflight Installation in York

A fixed rooflight brings light into a room. One that opens also brings air, and it does so from the highest point in the house, where the warmest and dampest air collects.

Think of a kitchen on a hot afternoon, or a bathroom after a long shower. Warm air climbs, so a window in the wall only shifts the air at one level. An opening rooflight lets the stale, humid air out at the top and draws cooler air in lower down, with no fan and no noise. In a loft bedroom, where the ceiling slopes and the room can run hot in July, it makes a real difference to how comfortable the space is to sleep in.

Electric operation adds one more thing: reach. A rooflight is usually somewhere you cannot touch, over a stair well, above a kitchen island or high up a sloping ceiling. A switch on the wall, or a small remote in a drawer, means you can open it as easily as you turn on a light. For a household that includes children, older relatives or anyone who finds a long pole awkward, that ease is the whole point of the job.

This page covers fitting a new opening rooflight or replacing a fixed one. If you are choosing between a roof window and a flat rooflight, our pages on roof window installation and flat roof rooflights explain the two shapes, and the rest of what we fit is listed under our services.

There are only a few ways a rooflight can open, and each one suits a different roof and a different room.

On a pitched roof, the usual opening roof window is either centre-pivot or top-hung. A centre-pivot window rotates around a spindle fixed at its midpoint, so the lower half swings into the room while the upper half goes outside. That makes the glass easy to clean from inside, and the handle sits at the bottom, within reach. A top-hung window is hinged along its upper edge and pushes out like an awning, which suits a window set high on a steep slope where a pivot's swing would catch the furniture below. Some pitched-roof units can also be opened as a balcony or a roof terrace window, though most homes in our area want a simple vent.

On a flat roof the choice is different. A flat rooflight that opens is generally a glass lid on a hinge, raised by a motor on an arm or a pair of chain actuators. The lid rises on its hinged side and leaves a gap on the opposite side, which is where warm air leaves. Sliding rooflights, where one glass pane runs over another, exist for larger openings, and they suit a rooflight that is also a feature in an extension.

Our guide to the hinged or sliding rooflight question goes through the trade-offs in more depth, with the kind of rooms each one suits.

The motor is the part people ask about first, and the right choice usually depends on how easily a cable can reach the rooflight.

A mains-powered electric opener is wired to a supply in the house. It runs from a transformer, so the motor on the window itself works at a safe low voltage, and the wiring is run inside the ceiling or the roof structure where it cannot be seen. It is the right choice where the ceiling is going to be opened up anyway, such as a new loft conversion or an extension, because the cable can be laid at no extra disruption.

A solar-powered opener carries its own small photovoltaic panel and a rechargeable battery. There is no cable to run and nothing to connect to the house supply, which is a gift in a room that has just been decorated. The panel needs daylight, so it suits slopes that see the sun for part of the day, and the battery has a reserve for cloudy weeks.

A manual opener is a handle on the sash, sometimes with a telescopic pole. It costs the least and has nothing to go wrong electrically, but only works if you can reach the handle or the pole. For a rooflight above a staircase or over a kitchen island, that is rarely practical.

The question of money is covered in our guide to electric rooflight cost, which sets out what moves a quote up or down.

The cleanest electric rooflight is the one where you cannot tell how the power arrived, and that is decided before anyone picks up a saw.

At the survey we trace the likely cable route from the rooflight to a spot where power can be taken. In a loft conversion, the route often runs along a rafter bay and down inside a stud wall. In a ground-floor extension, it may run through the roof void and drop at the edge of the room beside an existing switch. In a house where the ceiling is not being replaced, we look at what can be done from the loft, because a cable laid from above avoids cutting the plaster at all.

The supply to the motor is an electrical installation in a dwelling, and the connection is made by a competent electrician, with the work planned alongside ours so that the cable is in place before the lining goes up. Our answer on whether electric rooflights need an electrician explains how the electrical side is arranged and what it means for your project.

Where the switch goes is easy to get wrong. Put it by the door and you will use it every time you walk in. Hide it behind the kettle and it will be forgotten. We talk through where each of the controls should sit, and we mark the spot on the wall at the survey so there is no guesswork when the electrician arrives.

A switch by the door gets used daily; a switch behind the kettle gets forgotten by the second week.

From a survey in a kitchen extension

Opening a rooflight should take a second, and the control you choose decides whether it does.

The simplest control is a wall switch, wired alongside the others in the room. It has the advantage that nobody has to find it. A wireless remote is the next step, often supplied with the opener, and can run one window, a group of windows or windows and blinds together. A wall-mounted control panel can do the same job without batteries to replace. Some systems also link to a phone app or a home hub, which is useful if you want a rooflight to close from upstairs or while you are out.

Whichever control you choose, set-up is part of the job. The window has to learn its open and closed positions, the remote has to be paired with the right unit, and the rain sensor, if there is one, has to be tested. We do all of that with you standing in the room, so that you leave knowing which button does what. The written instructions are in your handover folder, along with the maker's details.

One thing to decide early is whether to group controls. A single remote that runs the rooflight, the blind and perhaps a second window upstairs is more pleasant to live with than three separate handsets, and it is easier to set up when everything is fitted in the same visit.

An open rooflight and a sudden shower do not mix, and a sensor is the simplest way to stop the two meeting.

A rain sensor is a small, flat panel on the outside of the glass or frame. When the first drops land on it, it signals the motor to close the window. The reaction takes only moments, long before any real amount of water reaches the room. Many people find that a sensor changes how they use the rooflight: with one fitted, it can stay open all day, even when the forecast is uncertain, because the window shuts itself.

The sensor depends on power, so it only works on an electric or solar opener, and it only helps while the window is on its own power supply. The controls on some openers also include a delay or a temperature setting that lets the window close after a time. We explain how yours behaves at handover so there are no surprises.

Our guide to rain sensors and controls for rooflights goes through how sensors behave, and how they combine with remotes and blinds. Our answer on what happens to an electric rooflight in a power cut covers the other side of reliability.

The opening mechanism is only half of it, because air only moves when it has somewhere to go.

The best ventilation comes when one opening is high and another is low. A rooflight at the top of a stair well, with a window or door open at the bottom, will draw air through the house like a chimney. In a single room, opening the rooflight and one window on the far side gives a cross-flow that clears heat quickly. A rooflight over the cooker takes steam away before it reaches the walls, and one above a shower does the same for the bathroom.

Light and view come into it too. A roof window set low in a sloping ceiling lets you look out while seated or lying in bed, while one set higher shows more sky. On a flat roof, the rooflight is usually centred over the part of the room where you spend time, such as a dining table or a seating area. The survey includes standing in the room with a tape and a marker, because a position that looks right on a drawing can feel wrong from the sofa.

The direction of the roof slope also plays a part. A south-facing rooflight catches more sun, which is good for solar-powered openers and bad for heat, so a blind or solar control glass often goes with it. A north-facing one stays cooler and gives a steadier, softer light. We look at both aspects together when we talk through the position with you.

For more on how opening rooflights change the feel of a room, see our guide to opening rooflights for ventilation.

If you already have a rooflight that stays shut, there may be a way to open it without redoing the roof.

The answer depends on the unit. Some fixed rooflights are the same frame as an opening version, and a motor or hinge kit can be added. Others are glazed in a way that cannot take moving parts, and a swap is the only option. In either case, the first step is to look at the frame, the size and the roof around it. If the opening is the right size and the structure around it is in good condition, a new opening unit can often go into the same hole, which saves cutting the roof or the ceiling again.

Taking out an old rooflight and fitting a new one, frame and glass together, makes it a controlled fitting and so notifiable, and we send the Building Control notification ourselves. Replacing only a sealed glass unit is not notifiable, but a sealed unit does not make a fixed window open. Our answer to can a fixed rooflight be made to open sets out the situations we meet most.

If the existing unit is a VELUX, the size code on the data plate tells us a lot. In a code such as MK04, the letter gives the width and the digits the height, and we can often match a new opening window to the same opening. Our page on VELUX window installation explains how that matching works.

A window in the roof is out of sight of the street, so it should be as secure as one at ground level, and safe for children who live in the room.

A good opening rooflight shuts onto locking points as well as a handle or motor, and many have a ventilation position that holds the sash open a few centimetres while the lock stays engaged. That means you can leave a window cracked open at night without leaving the house open. Our answer on whether opening rooflights are secure covers locks, restrictors and what intruders can and cannot reach from a roof.

Child safety is mostly about the fall height and the opening size. In a bedroom or a landing, a window that opens only a little, or that has a restrictor, keeps small children from leaning out. On a flat roof, an opening lid that rises on a motor should have a sensible stop so the lid never rises beyond where it was designed to sit. In kitchens, we take care that the swing of an opening sash clears the hob and any hanging pans.

The rooflight that stays cracked open all night is only a good idea if it also stays locked.

From a loft bedroom survey

Overhead glass also matters. We fit laminated glass on the room side, so that if the inner pane were ever cracked, it holds together instead of dropping into the room. The choice of laminated glass is ours, because overhead safety matters in a family home, not something that the regulations require.

An opening window in a roof can be a way out of a room, but only in certain buildings, and it pays to know which.

The rules on means of escape sit in Approved Document B. An escape window only counts for a storey within 4.5m of the ground. So a roof window can work as the escape for a room in a bungalow or chalet bungalow roof, provided its sill falls inside that height. On a two-storey house, a loft conversion needs a protected stair leading to the ground-floor exit, and a roof window cannot stand in for it, however large it is.

Opening size and height matter for any window meant for escape. The clear opening has to be big enough to climb through and the bottom edge has to be at a usable height from the floor. When we survey a loft or bungalow roof, we check this before we quote, because it can change the size of the window or where it sits. Our answer on whether a rooflight can give access to the roof deals with a related question, using a hatch-style opening to step out.

If a loft conversion is part of your plan, the building control body reviews the escape arrangements as part of the application. We work to the drawings they approve.

Most opening rooflights on houses can go in without a planning application, but the conditions are specific, and a few of them concern opening glass.

Rooflights on houses are usually permitted development as roof alterations, so long as they project no more than 150mm above the roof plane and never rise past the highest part of the roof. For an opening rooflight the side-slope limit is the one that bites: facing a side slope, the glazing must stay obscure and permanently shut, except where the opening part is more than 1.7m above the floor of the room. A rooflight that opens on a side slope can therefore need a different position, or a different decision about opening, than one on the back of the house. Our guide to skylight planning permission and Building Regulations sets out the full picture.

If your home is a flat or maisonette there are no permitted development rights here, and an application is needed. A listed building asks for listed building consent. Inside a conservation area houses keep permitted development, although an Article 4 direction can withdraw it from named streets, which the council will confirm. Within York the authority is City of York Council. Outside the ring road it could be Leeds City Council, East Riding of Yorkshire Council or North Yorkshire Council, and on the moors it is the National Park Authority.

On the building side, cutting a new hole in the roof requires Building Regulations approval, covering both the structure and the thermal performance. Under Part L 2021, a roof window takes a U-value of 1.4 W/m²K or Window Energy Rating Band B, and a rooflight takes 2.2 W/m²K. When a whole rooflight is replaced, frame and glass, it is a controlled fitting and notifiable. The notification goes to the council or to a registered building control approver through us, and the certificate is placed in your handover pack.

Fitting an opening rooflight is a small building job in a room you live in, and the plan for each day is written down before we start.

On the first morning we lay protection from the front door to the room, over the stairs if the route goes that way, and cover whatever stays in the room. Where the layout allows, we screen the work area so dust stays where it was made. The opening is formed from the roof or from the loft, depending on the roof, and the new trimmers are fixed to carry the load around it. Before we leave each evening the roof is closed against rain, either by the new unit itself or by a cover fixed over the hole.

The same team stays from first day to last, so you are not explaining the house to someone new each morning. Rubbish is taken away, not left in a skip on the drive. Anyone on calls during the day should say so at the survey, and the loudest tasks will be timed around them.

An opening rooflight is only as good as what sits behind the lining, and that is the part we photograph before it is covered.

Around the frame there are trimmers, insulation, a vapour control layer and flashings or an upstand. Each of these does a job. The trimmers carry the roof around the hole. The insulation collar stops cold bridging at the frame. The vapour control layer keeps warm, damp room air out of the roof structure, and the flashings or the upstand shed water away from the frame. If any one is rushed, the problem shows up months later as a damp patch or a cold line on the ceiling.

On an electric unit there is one more item behind the plaster: the cable and its connection. We make sure the route is clean, clipped and marked, and the photograph shows where it runs. That helps anyone working on the ceiling in the future, such as an electrician fitting new lights, avoid it.

The photographs come to you as part of the handover, together with the product sheets, the warranty documents and, where it applies, proof that Building Control was notified.

When the last of the dust has been vacuumed, we sit down in the room with you and go through the rooflight the way you will use it.

The walk-through covers each control in turn: the switch, the remote, the sensor and any manual override. We show you how to clean the glass, what to avoid, and what the maker's guidance says about the gaskets and moving parts. If you have a solar opener, we show you where the panel sits and how to tell that the battery is charging. For a mains unit, we show you where the supply is isolated, in case an electrician ever needs to work on it.

Our guarantee stands behind the building work, meaning the cut opening, the framing, the flashings and how the unit is held down. Separate warranties from the makers look after the glass, the motor and the electronics. Both are written down, so you know who to contact for what. You can read more on our guarantee page, and the free survey begins with the short form below.

The free survey is where a rough idea becomes a plan you can read, price and decide on at your own pace.

We come to the house, look at the room and the roof, and talk through how you want the rooflight to behave. We check the position, the cable route, the opening direction and the rules that apply to your property, and mark out the opening so you can see it in place. We also look at the ceiling lining, the roof covering and any pipes or wiring in the way.

Afterwards the written quote arrives with every cost on a line of its own, showing what the rooflight, the motor, the sensor, the controls, the electrical connection and the finishing each add. A plan for each day of the fit comes with it. Nothing is hidden in a lump sum, and nothing needs deciding on the day of the survey.

If you would like to talk through the options before you book, the form below reaches us directly. Tell us the room, the roof and whether you want rain sensing or remote control, and we will bring the right options to the survey. If you are still weighing up the type of window, roof windows are a good place to compare.