Skylights and rooflights in Chulmleigh

Chulmleigh is small but old, a hilltop market town with the layout of a place that has had a centre for many centuries. The oldest buildings are cob, thick-walled and rendered, often limewashed or painted, with low ceilings and windows set deep into the wall. Some are thatched, many are slated, and a number have been altered so often that the original shape is hard to read.

Alongside them stand Georgian and Victorian houses with plainer fronts, built in stone or rendered brick, with taller rooms and roofs designed for slate. Further out the working farms leave their mark: farmhouses, outbuildings and barns, many now converted to homes, with beams, deep roof timbers and a great deal of roof space.

So a street in Chulmleigh can hold a cob cottage, a slate-roofed terrace and a 1980s bungalow within a few doors of each other, and each wants a different approach.

Then there are the later houses. Postwar estates and small modern developments sit on the edges of the town, mostly brick or render under concrete tile, with plasterboard ceilings and regular roof timbers. They are the easiest to work on and often the best candidates for a roof window in a loft that is waiting to be used.

Many of the older houses have been extended more than once. A cob cottage may carry a stone lean-to, a 1960s flat-roofed kitchen and a conservatory, and the roof plan is a patchwork of coverings, pitches and ages. The place to put a rooflight is rarely obvious from the lane, which is why the survey looks at every slope.

So a street in Chulmleigh can hold a cob cottage, a slate-roofed terrace and a 1980s bungalow within a few doors of each other, and each wants a different approach.

North Devon Council decides planning applications in Chulmleigh. For most houses a rooflight is covered by general permitted development, so no application is needed so long as the standard limits are kept, and those are set out for householders on our Devon planning and regulations page.

The centre of Chulmleigh is a conservation area, and conservation areas keep Class C rights unless the council has made an Article 4 direction, so check with North Devon Council whether one covers your street. The town also has a good number of listed buildings, and an exterior change to one, a rooflight included, must have listed building consent first. The same applies if the work cuts into an old ceiling or roof structure in a listed house. Householder rights do not stretch to flats or maisonettes.

Chulmleigh is not in a national park, although Exmoor and Dartmoor are both within reach, so no park authority is involved. Where a thatched house is listed, the thatch itself is part of the listing, which makes early conversation with the council worthwhile.

One practical point for the older houses is that the planning officer will usually care most about the slope that faces the street or the lane. A rooflight on a rear or side slope that cannot be seen from a public road is the easiest to agree, and on a cob cottage it is often the better position inside too, because the rear rooms tend to be the ones that need the light.

Building Regulations apply either way. Building Regulations apply either way: a new opening needs approval, and a full replacement of frame and glass has to be notified. Both applications are ours to submit.

Which rooflight is right comes down to the roof and the room. For the houses around Chulmleigh we would think along these lines.

On a farmhouse with an old roof, a bedroom that gets warm in summer is helped by an opening unit high in the slope, and Part F recognises that kind of ventilation.

Cob and thatch cottages

A small conservation rooflight on a rear slope, sitting low in the roof, in a room where the ceiling is lime and low.

Converted barns and farmhouses

A roof window or a pair of them, or a roof lantern where a big room wants daylight from above.

Single-storey extensions

A flat rooflight or a lantern, the kerb lined inside and the plaster edge kept crisp.

Later houses

A catalogue-size roof window in a loft conversion, or a sun tunnel above a landing or bathroom when the roof cannot take a window.

On a farmhouse with an old roof, a bedroom that gets warm in summer is helped by an opening unit high in the slope, and Part F recognises that kind of ventilation.

Chulmleigh is a longer drive from Exeter than most places we cover, so we group visits and combine nearby trips, including Winkleigh and Witheridge. The whole area is shown on our areas page.

The visit starts outside, looking at the roof slope by slope and at what sits on it: the covering, the ridge, any chimney, a thatch edge. Indoors we take the measurement from roof to ceiling, establish the ceiling's make-up and condition, and note whatever will shape the finish, from a beam to a crack that has been there since before you moved in. In a barn or farmhouse we also look at the rafters, because their spacing decides where an opening can sit without a heavy trim.

Floors are covered and dust contained, the room is left clean, and a ten-year guarantee covers the workmanship.

Access is rarely tight in the way a town street is, but lanes can be narrow and farm tracks steep, and a delivery of glass is not light. We ask about the approach before the visit so there are no surprises on the day. Where the roof is high, a scaffold or tower is part of the plan and part of the quote.

The quote that follows is in writing and you agree it before work begins. Floors are covered and dust contained, the room is left clean, and a ten-year guarantee covers the workmanship. A farmhouse or cottage visit can be requested through the form on this page, over WhatsApp, or by writing to info@brightviewskylightsexeter.co.uk. The Brightview homepage says more about our skylight and rooflight installation work.