Skylights and rooflights in Shaldon

Shaldon grew as a fishing and boating village, and then as a small seaside retreat in the late Georgian and Regency years, when villas and cottages went up around the green and along the waterfront. That history gives the village its look: rendered and colour-washed fronts, sash windows, little bay windows and balconies, and rows of narrow houses stepping up the slope behind the Strand.

Behind the older core, the character changes street by street. Victorian terraces and pairs of villas sit on the steeper roads, and a good number of larger houses were divided into flats long ago. Later building, from the interwar years through to the 1970s and after, fills the upper parts of the village and runs towards Ringmore, mostly brick or render bungalows, chalet bungalows and detached houses under concrete tile.

Some have been extended at the back, into the hillside, which gives you flat-roofed kitchens and garden rooms behind a very traditional front.

Older Shaldon cottages are often built of local stone or cob under render, with walls that are thick, uneven and out of true. Some have been extended at the back, into the hillside, which gives you flat-roofed kitchens and garden rooms behind a very traditional front. That mix is why one survey in Shaldon can look nothing like the next.

Teignbridge District Council handles planning for Shaldon, and the historic centre of the village is designated as a conservation area. A conservation area does not by itself rule out a rooflight on a house, because the general permitted-development allowance usually still applies. The catch is the Article 4 direction, which can withdraw those rights, so ask Teignbridge whether one covers your street before you choose a design.

Listed buildings are a separate matter. Shaldon has a number of listed houses, and an outside change of any kind, a new rooflight or the renewal of an old one included, needs listed building consent. The divided Victorian villas are often flats, and a flat lacks the householder allowance, which means a rooflight there needs a planning application.

Parts of the coast around Shaldon carry wider landscape designations, and we cannot say exactly where the lines fall for your address. The planning authority can confirm it in a short email, and we would rather you checked before the order goes in than after.

On a prominent slate slope, a conservation rooflight, with a slim frame set close to the slates and a central bar, is the version most likely to be well received. The size and height limits are laid out in the county planning and Building Regulations explainer, and the conservation rooflights page explains the product.

Age, roof covering and the room underneath decide the product, and in Shaldon they point to a fairly predictable set of answers.

• The Regency and Victorian cottages do best with a conservation rooflight on the back slope, sized to suit the slates and the room beneath.
• Older terraces with a loft room take a roof window in a white-painted pine or polyurethane frame, usually a centre-pivot that can be cleaned from inside.
• On chalet bungalows and 1960s houses, a pair of VELUX windows on the main slope looks right, finished with a clean lining to the plasterboard ceiling.
• Behind the house, an extension or garden room is the place for a lantern, or a flat unit standing on a kerb.
• A landing, hallway or bathroom that cannot take a full rooflight can still be lit by a sun tunnel.

A new opening is building work, since rafters are cut and trimmed

Whichever you pick has to meet the heat-loss figures in Part L. A new opening is building work, since rafters are cut and trimmed, and renewing an entire unit must be notified as well. If only the sealed unit is replaced and the frame is sound, no notice is needed. Building Control is left to us.

Ventilation is worth a thought too: an opening rooflight high in a loft room lets stale, warm air out, and Part F recognises it as part of purge ventilation.

Shaldon is about 17 miles from Exeter. Most visitors reach it across Shaldon Bridge from Teignmouth, or by the lanes that drop down from Newton Abbot. Once there, the streets near the centre are narrow, many houses have no drive, and a van may have to stop some way from the door. So the survey looks at how the job will physically happen: where a delivery can stand, whether a tower will do or scaffolding is needed, and whether that scaffolding would sit on the highway, a case that requires a licence from Devon County Council, and we allow time for it.

The roof is checked from outside first. Inside, we measure the space between roof and ceiling, in the room and the loft, establish the ceiling's make-up, and record what turns up around the proposed opening: a cornice, a crack, a damp mark, a wall that leans. On a conservation area or listed house, the same visit collects the detail needed for an application.

The quote that follows is written for your house, whether that is a Regency cottage or a hillside chalet, and it includes the lining details for each room. Work begins once you have agreed it, with dust contained and the room cleaned afterwards, and a 10-year workmanship guarantee on the installation. The quote form starts the process, and you can equally reach us over WhatsApp, or by email at info@brightviewskylightsexeter.co.uk.

We also work across the water in Teignmouth and further up the estuary in Newton Abbot. The areas page lists every other village and town we serve, and the homepage covers the full service.