Skylights & rooflights in Wedmore A village on its own island above the Somerset moors

Up under the roofs of these houses, the rooms follow a familiar pattern. The ceilings slope. The windows are small and set low. On a warm evening the air at the stair-head simply sits. One set into the slope at the rear breaks that pattern, and it does so and the front of the house stays exactly as it was before. Tilted open at the top, it gives the warm air a way to leave, and cooler air from downstairs climbs the stairs to replace it.

What Somerset Council will want to know

Wedmore sits within Somerset Council, and parts of the old centre are likely to be a conservation area with listed houses among the cottages. For a house that is listed, a new rooflight needs its own consent. Elsewhere, the rules usually allow a rooflight on a house, within limits that the planning permission guide sets out. Where a roof faces a lane in the old village, ask the council early, since a front slope draws far more interest than one hidden at the back.

The unit that suits a front slope most often is a conservation rooflight, since it is slim, low and divided by a single bar. Round the back there is more freedom, and a larger roof window can be as wide as the rafters allow. Where both slopes are visible from nearby roads, a pair of smaller units usually looks calmer than one very large one.

Cottages with deep eaves and a shallow loft are the trickiest. Often there is no full-height space at all, only a sloping room where you can stand upright near the middle and nowhere else. The wall plate is low, the slope is long, and a unit placed too far down the roof opens onto the floor rather than the ceiling. The sweet spot is a little above head height as you stand in the room, so you can reach the handle but the unit is still high enough to release the warm air. We stand in the room with you and mark the position on the slope from inside, so you can see exactly where the glass will sit before a single tile is lifted. If you prefer it higher or lower, that is the moment to say.

When a hole is cut in a roof, it is trimmed with new timbers so the load of the rafters passes round it. That work counts as building work and must meet the regulations, and it is done by the same crew who fit the window, not handed on to someone else. Each day ends with the roof closed against the weather.

Farmhouses and their outbuildings are the biggest roofs. A farmhouse attic can run the full length of the building under a steep slope, with small windows set only in the gables. Roof windows spaced down the slope carry daylight deep into the plan, and the choice of which ones open decides how cool it will be. We usually suggest one unit high in the slope for the hot air to leave and another lower down so that fresh air can enter without anyone opening a gable window, and where the roof is out of arm's reach, a motor means nobody needs a pole.

Converted barns and the idea of a chimney effect

A converted barn has a high ceiling and a single room that may be very large. Warm air rises into the apex, where the temperature can be noticeably higher than at floor level. An opening rooflight near the ridge lets the heated air drain upward, and a low door or window supplies the cooler air to take its place. Nobody needs a mechanical system. The height difference does the work, which is why tall rooms are the easiest ones to air with a roof opening.

Bungalows and chalet bungalows

Wedmore has plenty of single-storey homes, and some have been extended up into the roof. A roof window there does more than bring in fresh air, because in a bungalow roof it can double as the way out. In a chalet-style home it may have to serve as the escape window for the bedroom, so the survey takes measurements of the sash and of how high the sill sits above the floor. A VELUX roof window is one of the usual choices, and the size code tells you the width and the height, so the right one can be matched to the opening between your rafters.

In a flat-roofed extension, a fixed glass roof soaks up the afternoon sun. A motorised opening rooflight, or one running on solar, vents that heat through the roof, and a sensor on the glass shuts it at the first rain. For a taller space, a roof lantern with vents that open does the same work, and gives the room more height. The costs guide lays out how these choices affect the price.

Nearby villages share many of these house types, and the neighbouring lanes pose similar questions, though the lie of the land changes how each one is used. In Cheddar and Axbridge the stone terraces step up the hillside, while Wedmore is flatter and more spread out, so what suits a roof in one place does not always suit another. We survey each house on its own merits.