Skylights and rooflights in Axminster

The town grew around the River Axe and a crossing of roads, and it carries more history than its size suggests. The minster church of St Mary gives the old centre its name and its focus. Axminster carpets were first woven here in the eighteenth century, and the name travelled the world long after the first looms.

The streets around the Market Place and down towards the station are mostly Georgian and Victorian: brick and rendered terraces, some with shop fronts at street level and rooms above, and a number of larger town houses with deep plots behind. The railway arrived in the nineteenth century, and the streets near the station filled out with terraces and villas.

Which of them yours resembles is the first thing we establish.

The twentieth century added estates of semis and bungalows to the edges, and recent decades have added more, in brick or render, with tidy roofs and plasterboard throughout. Axminster is still adding homes, so a modern house here may be only a few years old.

That mix means one town gives us almost every ceiling there is: old lath and plaster over a shop, a Victorian terrace with a plain flat ceiling, and a new build with a boarded loft. Which of them yours resembles is the first thing we establish.

The local planning authority is East Devon District Council. Most ordinary houses here can fit a rooflight under the general permitted-development limits on projection, height and side-facing glass, so an application is rarely needed for a rear or front slope. The exceptions are the ones below, and the detail is set out in the guide we have written on rooflight consents.

Axminster has a conservation area around its historic core. Inside a conservation area the permitted-development right normally still applies, yet the council may have withdrawn it by direction, so ask the council before ordering for a house near the Market Place or the church.

Listed houses need consent from the council before any change to the outside, a rooflight included, and before anything is done to old roof timbers or ceilings. Flats, among them the rooms above shops in the centre, do not enjoy householder rights at all, so those need a full application.

Nearby towns in the same council area are covered on our pages for Honiton and Seaton. The limits themselves are laid out in the Devon guide to rooflight permissions and building control.

Choice of unit follows the house and whatever sits beneath the roof. For Axminster's housing the pairings look like this:

Laminated glass on the inner pane is sensible over beds and stairs.

Glazing follows how the room is used, not only the roof it sits in. A south or west facing room can use solar control glass to hold back afternoon heat, while a north landing prefers clear glass to catch every bit of diffuse light. Laminated glass on the inner pane is sensible over beds and stairs.

Building Regulations apply to new and replacement units alike: the glass must achieve the Part L heat-loss figures, and swapping a whole unit counts as notifiable work. Telling Building Control is part of what we do for you.

Inside a house in the centre, you may find a ceiling of lath and plaster that has been patched over the years, or a boarded ceiling skimmed in the last century. Cutting into either is done with the ceiling supported, the cut line scored first, and anything loose secured before the frame is fixed. A deep roof build over a flat ceiling suits a splayed lining, which widens the opening at the ceiling and lets the light spread across the room instead of falling in a narrow column.

On a new build the problem is the opposite. The ceiling is a flat sheet of plasterboard under a trussed roof, and the risk is a lining that looks bolted on. Here the lining is boarded and taped, the corners are set with a bead, and the edge is painted to the colour of the ceiling so there is no visible join.

Both go in the finish schedule before work begins, while our page on finishing a rooflight indoors walks through every stage in order.