Skylights & rooflights in Backwell Up the slope from the main road, one loft at a time

Any planning question goes to North Somerset Council, and a window in the back slope seldom raises questions, though anything on a slope facing a road, or a house in a protected setting, is worth checking before work is booked. The rooflight planning guide explains when consent is needed. For the unit itself, the loft bedroom is the obvious candidate for a roof window with a proper opening sash, set where it catches the breeze coming over the slope.

Opening to the view

Because the land falls away, a roof window can look out over rooftops and fields rather than at a neighbour's wall. A centre-pivot window turns on its midpoint, so the bottom of the sash swings out and the top comes in, and you can lean out to look. A top-hung one tilts out from the base, giving a wide gap for airing. Which suits the room depends on where the bed sits and how high the sill is, and the page on the two pivot styles sets out the difference, including how far each sash swings into the room.

Shading as part of the plan

On an exposed slope, the best way to keep a loft cool is to stop the sun reaching the glass in the first place. An external blind or awning, fitted outside the pane, does that, and it works with an opening sash rather than against it. An internal blind helps with glare and with darkening a bedroom early on summer mornings. The blinds and accessories page lists the choices for each kind of window.

Think about wind too. Open ground and a rising slope let a breeze build up, and a good roof window is built to be shut firmly in one, while an electric unit with a sensor shuts itself before the weather turns. A vent bar gives you a small, steady supply on a still night when the sash must stay shut. The glass itself can be chosen for the position. Solar-control coatings cut the heat that comes through a west-facing pane, and a laminated inner pane, a recommendation and never a rule for a house roof, also takes some of the drum out of rain. Energy performance matters too, and the page on energy-efficient rooflights explains how replacement units are rated.

In a 1930s semi the loft above is often a plain roof void, and the landing below has been dark since the day it was built. An empty loft suits a sun tunnel, which runs daylight down a tube to a light diffuser set into the landing ceiling, and the optional vent moves a little air too. Where the loft is a bedroom, a roof window above the stairwell can serve both rooms.

Bungalows and chalets

Backwell has a good share of bungalows from the postwar decades, and many have gained a room in the roof. The bungalow loft room is the one most likely to rely on a single small window, and the one that gains most from a larger unit. A bedroom up there brings in the guidance on escape roof windows, and the size and sill height of the new unit are chosen with that in mind.

The sunny extension

Where a Backwell garden faces south or west, owners have often added an extension to enjoy it. A rear kitchen or sitting room under a flat roof, topped with one broad fixed pane, is bright, but it holds heat. The flat rooflight options include units that open by motor, with a rain sensor and a switch by the door, so the roof can vent while the hob is on. If the room has a lantern instead, a roof lantern lets the heat out at the very top of the room.

For nearby comparisons, Nailsea sits beside Backwell and shares much of its housing, and Wrington is a little further on. The costs page gives broad market ranges and the things that raise or lower a figure.

Chimney stacks matter on some of these roofs. A stack that rises through a 1930s slope takes up space, and a roof window must sit clear of it, with the lead flashing and the rafters respected. We mark the stack on the sketch at the survey so the unit lands where it works, and where the stack makes a window impossible we look at the other side of the ridge. That is also the time to check whether a rear dormer has already been built, since a window beside it needs a different approach.

The same house may need more than one answer. A 1930s semi could take a sun tunnel on the landing, a roof window in the loft bedroom, and an opening rooflight over the kitchen at the back, each chosen to suit the room under it. Fitting them together is often simpler than doing them one at a time, and the written quote lists each unit on its own line, with its own opening option, so you can choose what to go ahead with and what to leave for later years.