Skylights & Rooflights in SwillingtonQuiet village streets, and a bit more light under the roof

Swillington is a compact village, and its roofs tell you which decade each part of it was built.

The older streets hold cottages and modest houses that have been altered over the years, while later building added interwar semis, post-war houses and newer estates. On the edge of the village the land runs down towards the River Aire and the wetlands known as Swillington Ings, which gives that side of the village an open, rural feel.

That mix means the first step on any job is simply to look closely at the roof. The age, the covering and the structure underneath decide which rooflight is sensible, and no two houses on the same street are quite alike. A rooflight chosen from a catalogue without that look is a rooflight chosen blind.

Walking the roof space from inside tells us as much as the view from the lane. We look for daylight showing through the covering, old water marks on the timbers and any earlier alterations, such as a chimney taken down or a dormer added. Each of these changes what the opening can safely do, and each is easier to deal with before the quote than halfway through the job.

An old roof settles over the decades, and a new frame that assumes it is perfectly straight will not sit well.

Where a house has been standing a long time, the rafters may be uneven in spacing and slightly out of line. Before we order anything, we measure the opening, check the condition of the timbers and note where the roof dips. If a rafter is weak, it is strengthened as part of the work, and the trimmers around the opening are sized to carry the load. Where a house has had earlier work done to the roof, we open up a small area first to see how it was built before committing to the full opening, so nothing comes as a surprise on the day.

On a roof with a clear character, a slim rooflight that sits low in the covering looks more at home than a chunky frame. Our conservation rooflights page shows what is available.

Leeds City Council is the planning authority for Swillington, and it is the body to ask whenever the rules leave you unsure.

The normal position for a house is covered in our skylight planning guide, and many roof windows go in without an application. Owners of flats and maisonettes cannot use those rights, and a listed home needs consent for changes to the roof. A larger lantern on an existing roof usually needs the council's view because of its height above the roof.

The council may take a few weeks to reply, and that wait is normal. If the answer is not clear, we would rather you waited for it than ordered glass first. A rooflight that is made to measure cannot easily go back to the maker.

In a village, a quick word with the council before ordering is cheaper than learning afterwards that the front slope was off limits.

From a survey in Swillington

If the loft above a Swillington semi is already used for storage, a roof window is the first step towards using it for something better.

The key figure is headroom under the ridge. If there is enough, a window in the rear slope turns the space into a study, a hobby room or a guest bedroom, with a view across the gardens and the sky. How much opening you need depends on the use: a room you sit in wants a larger, opening window, while a store only needs enough light to find things.

If a window is already there, its size code, such as MK04, is printed on the data plate: the letter is the width, the digits the height. Our roof window installation page explains how we choose.

A kitchen added to the back of a house tends to end up bright at one end and dim at the other.

The new glazed doors light the garden side, but the far end near the old house gets very little. A flat rooflight or lantern placed over that far end spreads daylight along the room. The right choice depends on the ceiling height and on how much of the roof you want to open.

Because a lantern rises above the roof, check how it will look from the top of the garden. On a quiet back garden, a lantern glows softly from the garden when the room is lit at night, so the choice of glass and the position of lamps inside both show from outside. The main design question is usually the look from inside: a lantern gives you a dramatic roofline, while a flat rooflight is more discreet. Either way, we mark the position on the ceiling with you before anything is cut, so the light lands where you will use it.

The roof is opened for as short a time as the job allows, and the house is protected while we are in it.

Dust sheets cover the floors, stairs and furniture and the working area is screened off. In a village home with a single staircase this matters, because it is the route everyone uses, so it is protected first and cleared last. When we finish for the day the roof is weathertight again, so a night of rain is not your worry. Waste is cleared, and one team does the whole job. You will not find the opening left unattended or a stranger on the roof: the same people who measure up are the people who fit it, and they know what was agreed. The hidden structure is photographed so you can see what is behind the plaster. When the last piece is in place, we walk through the finished work with you, show how the window opens and cleans, and leave you with the paperwork in one folder.

A rooflight from an earlier decade often shows its age first as cloudy glass or a cold patch on the ceiling.

If the glass has fogged inside but the frame is sound, the sealed unit can often be changed alone. If the frame has warped or the kerb beneath it is damp, the better answer is a whole new rooflight, which is a controlled fitting that we notify to Building Control. We check which applies before we quote, and the quote says plainly which route we recommend and why. Where the old unit is a plastic dome, a modern glazed rooflight also brings better insulation, so the room is warmer in winter as well as brighter.

See misted and failed rooflights for the glass-only route.

Swillington is about 25.3 road miles south-west of York, so it sits within our area, and the survey is free.

The visit takes in the roof, the room and what the council is likely to say, and a quote follows that lists each cost separately along with a plan for each day. Where Building Control needs to be told, we arrange the notification and pass you the paperwork at the end, along with the manufacturers' guarantees and the 10-year workmanship guarantee.

We also work in Garforth, Kippax and Rothwell.

On the day of the survey we also look at how you reach the roof. Terraced and semi-detached houses in a village like Swillington may have narrow side passages or a shared lane, and that decides how the frame, glass and materials are carried in. If scaffold or a hoist is needed it is listed in the written quote, so nothing about access comes as a surprise.