Skylights and rooflights in Ottery St Mary

Ottery is an old town, and you can read its history in the buildings. The great collegiate church of St Mary sits above the centre, and the lanes around it hold a close mix of cottages, former shops, small terraces and larger town houses. Many are rendered, some are brick, and a good number of the older ones have thick walls of cob or rubble stone beneath the render.

The town is best known outside Devon for its tar barrels on bonfire night, and for being the boyhood home of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Neither affects a rooflight, but both are a reminder that the centre has been lived in for a very long time, and that houses here have been altered, extended and re-roofed more than once.

So the first question when we arrange a survey is simple: which of those is yours?

Beyond the old core sit Victorian and Edwardian terraces, then a long run of twentieth century development: semis, bungalows and estates in brick or render. The newest streets on the edges of the town have trussed roofs over blockwork walls. Outside the town, the surrounding villages and hamlets add farmhouses, barn conversions and thatched cottages to the list.

So the first question when we arrange a survey is simple: which of those is yours?

For most houses in Ottery, no application is needed, because the national permitted-development allowance for rooflights covers a modest unit on a main slope, with sensible caps on projection, on height and on side-facing glass. Our guide to Devon rooflight permissions lists them, so here the focus is on the things that change the answer in Ottery.

Ottery has a conservation area around its historic centre, designated by East Devon District Council, and listed buildings sit both inside and outside it. Inside a conservation area the usual right normally remains, though the district council can withdraw it by direction, so ask its planning team whether that has happened on your road. Anything listed needs consent for outside changes, and a listed thatched cottage is a typical case.

Flats and maisonettes, including those over shops in the town centre, come without householder rights, so a rooflight above one needs planning permission. If you are unsure which category your home falls into, check with East Devon District Council before you decide on a design.

Planning is one half of the paperwork and Building Control the other. A new opening has to be notified, as does the exchange of a complete unit with its frame, and the notification is something we do for you.

The housing here is varied enough that no single product fits it. A table is the clearest way to set the options side by side.

The room decides the glazing. A bedroom facing south beneath a pitched roof may call for solar control glass, whereas a landing facing north wants clear double glazing in the biggest size the opening allows. Both new and replacement rooflights have to reach the Part L heat-loss standard, and a laminated inner pane is wise wherever people sit or sleep beneath it.

If an existing rooflight has misted between its panes, replacing only the sealed unit in its frame is sometimes enough. Where the frame itself has failed, a new window in the same opening limits the disturbance to the ceiling, as our guide to replacing an old skylight explains.

Sun tunnels deserve a mention for the older houses. Where the roof is thatch or the attic is too shallow for a splayed shaft, a tube can bring daylight to a landing without a large opening in either roof or ceiling.

A survey visit to Ottery is easy to arrange. The town is reached from Exeter by the A30 and the roads along the Otter valley, and it sits close to Sidmouth and Feniton, where we also work. At the visit we begin on the outside, studying the roof, and then work in the room and the loft, measuring how deep the gap is between roof and ceiling, judging the state and make-up of the ceiling, and recording anything that will affect the finish.

The survey is also the time to talk about the room itself, not just the roof. Where the furniture will stand, how the sun moves across the house through the day and what the kitchen or landing is used for all feed into the size and position of the opening. A bedroom wants a rooflight above the foot of the bed, not the pillow, and a kitchen island wants the glass to sit square above it. Photographs of the room and the roof, sent with your enquiry, help us arrive with the right questions already in mind.

Access forms part of the visit. Some of the older streets are narrow, with little space to unload or put up a tower, and a scaffold that has to stand on the public road or pavement needs a licence from the county council's highways team. We allow for that in the programme rather than discovering it on the first morning.

A written price follows the visit, and the finish for your ceiling is settled on paper before work begins. Dust is contained and the room is put back in order, with a 10-year workmanship guarantee on the installation. A cottage under thatch, a terrace off the church lanes or a bungalow on the edge of town can all start with the quote form, or with a WhatsApp or email to info@brightviewskylightsexeter.co.uk. Our homepage covers the full service, and the areas page lists the other towns we work in.