Skylights and rooflights in Milverton

Milverton grew around its church and a main street, and for centuries it lived off farming and the cloth trade of the surrounding district. The older streets carry a mix: Georgian fronts with sash windows, rendered cottages, and some buildings in the local red sandstone and rubble stone. Behind them are farmhouses, barns and outbuildings, many of them cob under render or thatch, which is typical of the lanes between the Vale of Taunton and the Brendon Hills.

Around the old centre are the later layers. There are Victorian terraces and villas, council and housing association houses from the middle of the twentieth century, and cul-de-sacs of modern brick-and-tile homes on the edges. Barn conversions are common in the surrounding hamlets, and these are where a rooflight can change a room most.

A village of this kind has no standard house.

A village of this kind has no standard house. The first job at a survey is to find out which of those layers your home belongs to, because that decides the product, the opening and the way the lining meets the ceiling.

Planning decisions for Milverton are made by Somerset Council. In Milverton most houses can add a rooflight without applying, under the general allowance, provided the glass stands 150mm or less from the roof surface and stays below the ridge. On a side slope the opening part must be more than 1.7m up from the floor. Flats and maisonettes sit outside the allowance, so for those an application is needed.

The centre of Milverton is a conservation area, and the village has a large number of listed buildings, from the church to houses and cottages along the main street and lanes. Inside the conservation area the allowance still stands, except where an Article 4 direction has withdrawn it, so ask the council about your road. A listed building is always different: external alterations need listed building consent, and so does work that affects the historic fabric inside.

On any of these the sensible order is to speak to the council first, choose the product second and order third.

Some permitted development rights are also removed from converted barns by the original planning permission, and thatched cottages are very often listed. On any of these the sensible order is to speak to the council first, choose the product second and order third.

Rules that cover most houses are laid out in the guide that explains planning and Building Regulations for Devon rooflights, and the conservation rooflights page describes the slim, low-profile glass that suits protected roofs.

Many Milverton homes also already have a rooflight of some kind, often a small roof window put into a loft or an old cast skylight over a stair. Replacing one of these means looking at the frame, the flashing and the lining together, because a new unit in the old opening is the neatest route and leaves the ceiling mostly untouched. Our page on misted and failed rooflights explains what a replacement involves and when a new glass unit alone will do.

Each kind of building in the village points to a different answer, and they are easiest to take one at a time.

A listed or older cottage is the delicate case. If consent allows, a slim conservation rooflight set in a rear slope does the least harm to the roof and the room.

On a north-facing landing, clear high-performance glass lets in the most daylight

A Victorian terrace or villa with a loft room suits a roof window that hangs from the top or pivots at the middle, with a splayed lining easing the light into the ceiling.

Converted barns want something bigger: larger or paired roof windows, and sometimes an electric opening rooflight high on the slope to let warm air out.

A kitchen or garden room built on the back takes a roof lantern or a low flat unit on an insulated upstand, and a dark landing or internal room can borrow daylight from a sun tunnel where a full opening cannot be made.

Glazing follows the room. On a north-facing landing, clear high-performance glass lets in the most daylight, while a west-facing bedroom does better with solar control to hold the afternoon heat down. Laminated glass on the inner pane makes sense overhead, though Part K does not demand it.

Under Part F an opening rooflight can serve as purge ventilation, which suits a bathroom or a converted loft. Whatever you choose, current Building Regulations apply, and the heat-loss standard of Part L is met.

Milverton is a long way from Exeter by road, and a good many homeowners in this corner of Somerset will also know the Mid Devon towns to the west. If you are comparing housing and planning in places we already cover, our pages on rooflight installation in Bampton and rooflight installation in Tiverton show how the picture looks across the county line.

Because Milverton is at the outer edge of our area, we plan the survey and any scaffold together so that a single visit does as much as it can.