Skylights and rooflights in Kenton

Kenton takes its colour from the ground. The soil is red, the old walls are red, and a good deal of the village was put up from the pit or the quarry nearest to hand: earth-and-straw cob, rough red sandstone, and brick where somebody rebuilt a gable in the nineteenth century. Walls of a foot and a half are normal. Most wear lime render or limewash outside and lime plaster inside.

Nothing in such a house is quite true. Floors dip toward the old chimney, ceilings follow the floor above, and a room that looks square to the eye rarely measures that way. Bedrooms tucked under the roof have sloping ceilings and low eaves, and that is the usual place for a roof window to do the most good.

The village has since spread outwards in layers. Victorian and Edwardian houses came first along the roads, then interwar and postwar homes in brick or render, then bungalows on the fringes and newer closes with plasterboard ceilings under trussed roofs. Those later houses are straightforward to work in, because the structure is regular, the rafters sit at even centres and the ceilings are flat.

Powderham and its estate lie just along the estuary, and the farmland around the village has kept its older buildings close to the lanes. Which of those layers your house belongs to, and whether it has ever been extended, is the first thing we ask, because the answer sets the product, the planning route and the finish.

For a house in Kenton the local planning authority is Teignbridge District Council. On an ordinary freehold house the general permitted-development allowance for rooflights normally applies, and its size, height and side-glazing conditions are summarised on the county-wide planning rules page.

Kenton has a good number of listed buildings, including houses in and around the village centre. A rooflight on a listed house counts as an external change, so listed building consent comes first. Some of the village may also sit inside a conservation area, where the normal allowance usually survives unless an Article 4 direction has removed it. We would not guess which applies to your street: it is a short question for Teignbridge's planning team and the answer decides the product you choose.

Flats and maisonettes, among them conversions of larger houses, lack householder rights altogether, so a new rooflight there needs planning permission. When consent is needed, a low-profile conservation rooflight is the usual choice on a visible slope, and our page on conservation rooflights explains what they are.

Over a bedroom or a kitchen island we suggest a laminated inner pane, because it holds together if it ever breaks.

What the planning position allows decides which row applies to your house.

Every choice here is installed to current Building Regulations. Cutting a rooflight into an existing roof is building work, and so is renewing the whole unit. The new rooflight has to meet Part L on heat loss, and Building Control hears from us. If only the misted sealed unit is swapped and the frame is sound, there is nothing to notify.

Over a bedroom or a kitchen island we suggest a laminated inner pane, because it holds together if it ever breaks. That is good practice, not a Building Regulations rule for rooflights.

Glazing follows the room. A kitchen extension facing south may call for solar control glass to take the edge off the afternoon, whereas a landing facing north is happier with clear double glazing of high thermal quality. Opening rooflights high in a roof also let warm air out of a stuffy upstairs room, and Part F lets an opening unit count toward purge ventilation. Electric ones with a rain sensor suit rooms where the rooflight is out of reach.

Kenton is an easy visit from Exeter, down the A379 through Exminster. The survey begins outdoors with the roof, then we climb up to the loft and down to the room beneath, measuring the gap between covering and ceiling, identifying the ceiling material and seeing where the walls meet it. If the roof is thatched, we look at which parts of the building have a different covering.

Kenton is mostly a village of small plots, and the work has to fit around the lane, the neighbours and the garden, so a rooflight job here is planned as much around the street as around the roof. Some lanes are narrow and some houses have no frontage to park in front of. We use the visit to decide where materials can be unloaded, how tall a ladder or scaffold tower needs to be, and whether neighbours will notice the work on the day. Where the house is listed or may be in a conservation area, the visit also gives us the measurements and detail you need to support an enquiry to the council.

A cob cottage and a 1970s bungalow will not get the same quote, so ours is written around the house: price, lining and ceiling details, agreed before anything is cut. Dust is kept contained, the room is cleaned, and the work comes with a 10-year workmanship guarantee. If you are further along the estuary, we also cover Starcross and Exminster, and the full list is on our areas page. The quickest route to a survey is the quote form, though you can also WhatsApp us or email info@brightviewskylightsexeter.co.uk if you would rather talk first. Photographs of the roof and the ceiling below it, sent with the enquiry, help us arrive prepared for what the house is made of, and a note about any thatch or listing saves a second visit. For the whole service, start from the skylight and rooflight installation homepage.