Skylights and rooflights in Exeter, finished where you’ll see it

The words get used loosely, even by the trade, so it helps to pin them down before you compare quotes. Each name points to a different product, a different roof and usually a different room.

Skylight

The everyday word for any glass set into a roof. Most homeowners search for a skylight and mean whatever lets daylight in from above, on any roof.

Rooflight

The term used in Building Regulations and by most manufacturers. It covers fixed or opening glazing on flat roofs, slim low-profile units on pitched roofs and the steel conservation rooflights made to sit almost flush with natural slate.

Roof window

An opening window built for a pitched roof, of the kind VELUX made familiar. It pivots or hinges so you can clean the outside from indoors, and it is the usual choice for loft rooms.

Roof lantern

A raised, pitched glass structure that stands on a kerb on a flat roof. It belongs over a kitchen or garden room extension, where it gives the room height as well as daylight.

Sun tunnel

A reflective tube that carries daylight from a small dome on the roof to a diffuser in the ceiling. It suits rooms where a full opening would be awkward, such as an inner bathroom or a landing with a loft above.

Matching the product to the room is mostly common sense once the names are clear. A rear kitchen extension in Pennsylvania or Alphington with a flat roof takes a roof lantern or a flush flat roof rooflight, depending on how much height and drama you want over the island. A loft bedroom wants a roof window that opens wide for air, and sometimes one large enough to serve as an escape window. A slate roof on a Georgian terrace in a conservation area calls for a conservation rooflight with slender glazing bars and a low profile.

The interior side matters just as much as the roof when you choose. A roof window in a loft room sits in a shallow reveal and needs very little lining. A rooflight over a landing, with a cold loft between roof and ceiling, needs a shaft built through that loft, and the shape of that shaft decides how much of the daylight reaches the floor. That difference is a large part of what our guide to skylights and rooflights unpicks, and it comes up again in every chapter below.

The lining is what you look at every day, so that is where we take our time. The lining is the four sides of the opening between the rooflight frame and your ceiling, and how it is formed decides whether the finished opening reads as part of the room or as a hatch.

In a loft room, the lining is shallow: the depth of the rafters and their insulation, perhaps a hand's width or two. Over a landing or a bedroom with a loft above, the lining becomes a shaft that runs up through the roof void, sometimes a long way. That shaft has to be framed, insulated on its loft side so it does not become a cold, damp box, and boarded or plastered inside.

From the sofa, you will see the lining every day. So that is where we take our time.

The splay does most of the work. A straight-sided shaft through a deep roof lets daylight fall in a narrow column, and much of the glass is wasted lighting the walls of the box. A lining splayed wider at the ceiling than at the glass spreads that daylight across the room, softens the edge and makes the opening look deliberate. How far to splay depends on the roof depth, the rafters either side and what sits above, which is why it gets decided on site rather than assumed. Our answer on what a splayed rooflight lining is goes into the geometry.

Then comes the finish. In a house with plasterboard ceilings, the lining is boarded, taped and skimmed, with angle beads on the arrises so every edge is straight and crisp. In a house with lath and plaster or cob, the lining is finished in lime so it moves and breathes with the ceiling around it, and the join between new and old is cut back to sound plaster and made good in the same material. Whether a skylight can go into a lath and plaster ceiling is a common worry. It can, with care.

All of this is written down before you agree anything. Each quote includes a finish schedule, a single page for that room covering what the ceiling and roof are made of, whether the lining runs straight or splayed and the reason, the trim if there is any, the final surface (primed for you to decorate, or painted) and the plan for dust. That makes the inside of the job a written specification you can hold us to. Our guide to how a rooflight is finished inside walks through each line of it, and you can ask for a quote with a finish schedule for your own room.

Planning and Building Regulations are separate systems that ask separate questions, and a rooflight usually involves the second even when it escapes the first. Planning asks whether you may change how the roof looks. Building Regulations ask whether the work is built safely and efficiently.

For a house, rooflights normally need no planning application, because they are covered by the General Permitted Development Order (Class C, in Part 1 of Schedule 2). Three conditions apply. The rooflight may sit at most 150mm above the roof slope, it may not rise above the roof's highest point, and a window in a side-facing slope has to be obscure-glazed and fixed shut unless the opening part is over 1.7m above the floor of the room. Flats and maisonettes sit outside householder permitted development, so a rooflight there generally needs permission.

Conservation areas still allow Class C, but a council can remove it with an Article 4 direction, and in parts of Exeter and the older towns around it that is the point to check. Exeter City Council covers the city, while East Devon, Teignbridge, Mid Devon and Torbay cover most of the surrounding area. A listed building requires listed building consent before external changes, and cutting into a historic ceiling may need it as well. Inside Dartmoor and Exmoor, the national park authorities are the planning authority, and the parks are Article 2(3) land, where some householder rights are narrower. If your home is in either park, check with the park authority before assuming anything. The Planning Portal has an interactive guide to the householder rules that makes a good starting point.

Building Regulations are less negotiable. Fitting a new rooflight into an existing roof is building work. Rafters are cut back, which alters the structure, and the new unit has to satisfy Part L, so Building Control approval is required. A like-for-like swap of the whole rooflight or roof window, frame and glass together, is notifiable as well, since a window is a controlled fitting and its replacement must satisfy Part L. A new sealed glass unit in a sound frame does not need notifying. Wherever the work does need notifying, we make the Building Control notification, so the paperwork arrives with the finished job rather than as a surprise when you come to sell. Our guide to planning and Building Regulations in Devon and the short answer on whether skylights need Building Regulations approval cover the detail.

Most single rooflights go in over one or two days, with plastering and decoration following once the finish has dried. The exact time depends on the roof, the depth of the lining and whether lime is involved, and our answer on how long it takes to fit a skylight breaks that down.

The morning starts indoors. The route from the front door is protected, the room below the opening is cleared or sheeted, and a dust screen is sealed to the ceiling around the area being cut. Where the roof allows, the opening is formed from above, so the heaviest work and debris stay outside. Inside, cutting is done with extraction, and offcuts leave the house bagged rather than carried loose through your hall.

Plaster dust travels further than most people expect, so containment is planned rather than improvised.

On the roof, slates or tiles are stripped back around the opening and set aside for reuse. Rafters are trimmed and the frame is fixed to the new trimmers, with an insulation collar around it and the manufacturer's flashing kit dressed into the slate or tile. The covering is then laid back up to the flashings and the rooflight is watertight, usually the same day.

Back inside, the ceiling is cut cleanly to the line of the lining and the lining is framed, insulated and boarded. Plasterboard skims can often be finished the next day. Lime work is slower, because lime cures by taking up air and has to be left to firm before it is painted. Once the plaster is dry, the edge is decorated or left ready to paint, exactly as the finish schedule says.

At the end, the screen comes down, everything is vacuumed with a fine-filter machine, surfaces are wiped and the room is left clean. Plaster dust travels further than most people expect, so containment is planned rather than improvised. Our answer on how much mess fitting a rooflight makes is a fair account of it.

A good installer will be glad to answer detailed questions, and the answers tell you a lot about how the inside of your house will look when they leave. These are worth putting to any firm you invite round.

• Will I get a written quote, agreed before work starts, that names the product, the glazing and the U-value?
• How will the lining be formed: straight or splayed, and why for my roof?
• How will the ceiling be finished, and will lime be used if the house has lath or cob?
• Will the edge be painted, or left ready to paint?
• Who handles the Building Control notification, and will I receive the completion certificate?
• How will dust be contained, and how will the room be left?
• Will my slates or tiles be reused, and how will the flashing be detailed?
• What guarantee covers the workmanship, and for how long?

Our answers are written down before you commit. Each quote carries a finish schedule covering the lining, the surface and the dust plan. Each installation is built to current Building Regulations, and notifiable work is reported to Building Control by us. The workmanship carries a 10-year workmanship guarantee.

We cover Exeter and its suburbs, from Pinhoe to Alphington, and towns and villages up to 30 miles out, including Exmouth, Crediton, Tiverton, Newton Abbot and the Torbay towns. The areas we cover page lists them. For a room where a full opening will not suit, such as an inner bathroom, ask about sun tunnel installation instead. When you are ready, send us your room and roof through the quote form or WhatsApp and we will arrange a survey.