Skylights & rooflights in Radstock Hillside streets, railway-age terraces and rooms that run warm

Conservation areas and older buildings

Some of the oldest parts of Radstock fall within conservation areas, and a few buildings are listed. Applications in Radstock are decided by Bath and North East Somerset Council, so ask the planners about any slope facing a main road before ordering, since a front elevation draws the closest look. Listed buildings need consent. The rooflight planning guide explains where houses stand.

Where a front slope needs a discreet answer, the conservation rooflight is made for it: a narrow frame, a single bar down the glass and a low profile that recalls the iron lights of the coal and railway years. Plenty of them open with a handle. For the rear slope, a conventional roof window gives a larger view and a wider opening.

A terrace often runs on from one house to the next, so the party wall and the neighbours' chimney stacks limit where a window can go. We work out the position from inside the loft, because the rafters are the real guide and the roof you see from the street can mislead. In an older house the rafters may not sit at a standard spacing, which is one reason a survey is done in person rather than from a drawing or a photograph.

Working with the slope of the ground

On hillside streets, houses on one side of a road look down on those opposite, and the roofs differ accordingly. A house above the road has a rear slope that faces away from the hill and catches the sky. A house below it may see a bank at the back and a roofline at the front. The sun's angle changes the story again. A south-facing slope heats quickly, so a unit there is a candidate for solar-control glass and a blind, while a north-facing slope brings steady daylight and little heat. We note which way every slope faces at the survey, and choose the glass to match.

Steep roofs also change how a window opens. On a steep pitch a top-hung sash swings out comfortably and the view is good. On a shallow pitch, a window that pivots in the middle can be easier to reach. The choice affects headroom, the position of the handle and how far the sash projects, so these details are settled on the day of the survey rather than left until fitting.

When the glazed extension overheats

A large fixed rooflight makes the room feel bright, and then the afternoon sun arrives. By mid-July the space may be too warm to use, and the garden doors are the only escape for heat. An opening flat rooflight changes this. Lifted open, the unit lets rising warmth stream out through the roof, while cooler air is pulled in through the doors below. Solar-control glass takes some of the edge off the sun as well.

Because a flat rooflight sits well above floor level, it is hard to open by hand. This is where an electric or solar opening rooflight comes in. A rain sensor closes it in a shower, a wall switch or remote opens it on demand, and a solar version needs no cable chased through the ceiling. A wide extension may suit a roof lantern better, since vents set round its sides share the airing over more of the room.

The same rooms are worth thinking about together. A bungalow may have a loft bedroom, a hall with no daylight, a kitchen extension and a bathroom, and each has a different best unit. One survey covers all of them, and the quote lists each room separately so you can decide which to do first and which to leave for later. Where several are done together, one team handles them in a single visit.

Sun and shade are worth a thought before any glass is chosen. On a Radstock plot hemmed in by a bank or by taller neighbours, a roof unit may sit in shade for much of the day and need clear glass to gather what daylight there is. On an open, south-facing slope the opposite holds, and a tint or a blind keeps the room bearable in summer. We talk about it room by room, because the same house can hold a sunny back bedroom and a shaded landing, and they rarely want the same glass. A good result often comes from fitting two different units in one roof, each suited to the slope it sits on, with matching frames so the roofline stays tidy.

Not every room can take a window. An inner bathroom, a landing or a hall without an outside wall can borrow daylight from the roof with a sun tunnel, whose tube runs from the roof to a pane in the ceiling. See the cost guide for how the choices compare on price.

Close neighbours Midsomer Norton and Peasedown St John share many of these house types, so the same approach carries over if you live a little further out.