Skylights and rooflights in Abbotskerswell

The old part of Abbotskerswell is the kind of Devon village that visitors photograph: lanes between cottages, walls of stone or cob, and roofs of thatch or slate. Cob is clay, subsoil and straw built up in thick lifts, then usually limewashed or rendered, and it gives walls of half a metre or more. It copes well when it is kept dry and breathable, and it complains when it is sealed with cement or hard modern plaster.

Many of the older houses have grown over the years, with rear wings, outbuildings joined on and attics converted when families outgrew them. Rooms under the roof tend to be low, with sloping ceilings and little natural light, which is why a rooflight is such a tempting addition. Walls are rarely plumb and ceilings rarely level, so a new opening has to be set out from the room as it is, not from a drawing.

The village also has a good deal of Victorian and early twentieth century housing in brick, stone or render, and these houses are more regular, with slate roofs and plaster ceilings. First ask which of these your home is, because it decides almost every detail that follows.

Householder applications in Abbotskerswell go to Teignbridge. Most ordinary houses can have a rooflight under national permitted development, as long as the usual limits on projection, height and side-facing glass are respected, and those limits are explained in the planning section of our Devon guide.

The older core of the village has historic protections that change this. Listed buildings, which are common among old cottages and farmhouses in villages like this, need listed building consent before the outside is altered, and consent can cover internal work to historic fabric as well. A conservation area can also apply to part of a village, and where it does, the council may have removed permitted development with an Article 4 direction. We do not assume either way. Check with Teignbridge whether your address is listed or inside a conservation area before you settle on a design.

A flat or maisonette lacks householder rights altogether, so ask the council first. Some owners wonder about the national park because Dartmoor is so close, but its authority has no say in the village.

Inside an Abbotskerswell cottage, the ceiling decides the method. In older houses it may be lime plaster on lath, plaster on boards, or lime plaster applied directly over the underside of the roof timbers. In a cob house it is the walls that matter just as much, because a roof window near a cob wall has to be detailed so that no hard cement or gypsum is carried against the earth.

A lime ceiling gets slow, patient handling. Before anything is cut, it is supported from underneath. Then the line is scored through the plaster, the laths are shortened to meet a sound timber so no cut end is left floating, and any plaster that has lost its grip near the edge is fixed back before the frame is set. Through a thick roof build the lining is angled outward, opening up toward the ceiling, so daylight spreads into the room instead of dropping down a dark shaft.

Gypsum butted against old lime often cracks along the join, and a vinyl paint can trap moisture in a breathable wall.

The new edge is then finished in lime to suit the house. Lime goes on in coats, feathered into the old surface, and takes a breathable paint such as limewash or a mineral emulsion. Gypsum butted against old lime often cracks along the join, and a vinyl paint can trap moisture in a breathable wall. Under a plasterboard ceiling the opening gets a boarded lining, joints taped and a skim coat to blend in.

Each of these choices is recorded in the finish schedule issued with your price, and our page on finishing a rooflight inside goes through the detail.

Many cottages here also have a stone or cob chimney breast, or a staircase that climbs into the roof space, and both can pin down where an opening can go. We note these at the survey, along with the position of any wiring and the line of the old purlins, so the rooflight is placed where the structure lets it sit comfortably.

Alongside the old centre, Abbotskerswell has newer homes built from the second half of the twentieth century onward, with semis, bungalows and detached houses on estates and infill plots. Some are only a few years old. They have plasterboard ceilings, regular roofs and loft spaces that suit roof windows well, and the work here is closer to what you would expect in any suburb.

Houses built in the last few years usually have trussed rafters, which cannot simply be cut, so an opening wider than the gap between two trusses needs a structural design. Older bungalows from the middle of the last century often have a cut roof with purlins, where a rooflight is easier to place. Bungalows with a low pitch and a flat-ceilinged lounge are often helped by a sun tunnel or a large flat rooflight above the main living space.

The finish on these houses is plasterboard, formed in a splayed lining, finished with metal beads and a taped and skimmed joint, and handed over bare for your own paint or decorated, whichever was agreed. Dust is managed throughout, and the room is left clean. Ceiling paint in these homes is usually a plain matt, so the new edge is matched to the sheen and colour of the room, not left a different shade of white.