Skylights and rooflights in Silverton

Silverton is a village in size and a small town in feel. Fore Street, the streets running off it and the lanes towards the church hold the oldest buildings: cob cottages under thatch or slate, rendered terraces, and larger houses that have grown by additions over several centuries. Cob is the traditional walling across this part of Devon, where the red clay soils of the valley suit it, and plenty of village houses still stand on thick cob walls under a coat of lime render.

Away from the centre, the village changed in the twentieth century. There are council-built and private estates of semis and short terraces, bungalows on the roads out towards the fields, and newer cul-de-sacs of brick and render houses with concrete tile roofs. Many older houses have been extended to the rear or side, and the kitchen or garden room at the back is usually where a lantern or flat rooflight is wanted.

So the first question in Silverton is which of those your house is closest to.

The village also has a handful of conversions, where an old farm building, chapel or workshop has become a house with big timbers and deep roof spaces. These are the roofs that gain most from a lantern or a run of roof windows, because the volume under them is generous and the structure can often take new openings without much trimming.

Each era leaves a different inside. A cob cottage has low ceilings, deep reveals and walls that are never quite straight. A 1960s semi has flat plasterboard ceilings and a regular roof. So the first question in Silverton is which of those your house is closest to.

Cob and lime behave differently from brick and plasterboard, and a careless opening shows. Cob is soft and breathes, so it is finished in lime, not gypsum, and a gypsum patch against old lime tends to part company at the edge and can hold damp behind it. Where a rooflight sits near a cob gable or wall head, the structure above is checked first, because rafters in an old cottage can be small, uneven or widely spaced.

Many Silverton cottages keep lath and plaster ceilings, sometimes with a later layer of board nailed up beneath. Before cutting, we prop the ceiling from below. The plaster is then scored along the line, the laths are trimmed back to a rafter so each cut end is fixed, and any loose plaster beside the cut is secured before the frame is set. The lining is built up in lime and feathered into the old surface, then painted in a breathable finish.

Angling the sides outwards spreads daylight across the room and makes the opening look designed, not cut.

A cottage ceiling can be low, so the lining may be only a few hundred millimetres deep, and a splay is still worth having. Angling the sides outwards spreads daylight across the room and makes the opening look designed, not cut. In a newer house with a flat plasterboard ceiling, the lining is boarded and taped or skimmed to match what is already there. All of it is recorded in the finish schedule, and the stages are set out in our walk-through of interior finishing.

Roofs that already carry an old rooflight are worth a look before any new one is planned. A small skylight put in decades ago can sit in an opening that is the wrong size or the wrong place for the room now, and a fresh opening in a better spot, with the old one closed up and slated or tiled over, sometimes gives a better room than a like-for-like swap.

Silverton lies on the eastern side of the Exe valley, in sheltered, gently rolling country, facing neither the open coast nor the moor. Wind is less of a trial here than at Topsham or on Dartmoor, but rain is still rain, and the valley floor holds damp air on still, cold mornings. Indoors that shows up as condensation on the coldest surface in a room, which is often a rooflight lining with only thin insulation behind it.

So the specification looks at the lining as closely as at the glass. Insulating the shaft well, lapping the vapour control layer onto the frame and choosing a warm-edge spacer in the sealed unit all keep the glass and the plaster around it warm enough to stay dry. In a cottage with lime plaster the insulation behind the lining must still let the wall breathe, a point the finish schedule records.

Ventilation is part of the choice. Opening rooflights can contribute purge ventilation under Part F, and a powered unit fitted with a rain sensor can stay slightly open when the weather is mixed, which suits a top-floor bedroom that collects the afternoon warmth. Where the room is a loft conversion, a roof window may also have to serve as an escape window, and Approved Document B sets size and position rules for that, so the choice of frame is made with the room use in mind.

The valley also means pasture and mature trees close to many houses. Leaves and bird droppings gather on a shallow rooflight, so pitch and flashing are chosen to shed water cleanly, and a lantern over a rear extension is positioned with the garden trees in mind.

Silverton is a short drive up the valley from Exeter, so a survey visit is easy to book. We inspect the roof from outside, then work inside and in the loft, taking the gap between roof and ceiling, finding out how the ceiling is built and spotting anything that changes the finish, such as a cob wall head, a cornice or an old crack heading for the planned opening.

Access in the village is mostly easy, though the lanes around the centre are narrow, and a farm gate or tight turn can decide where the glass is unloaded. The visit also settles where materials can be put down and whether access equipment is needed. Scaffolding that would stand on the road or pavement has to be licensed by Devon County Council, the highway authority.

A written price follows and is agreed before work starts. We keep dust under control, leave the room tidy, and stand behind the installation with a 10-year workmanship guarantee. Silverton sits close to Bradninch and Broadclyst, and we cover both. To have someone look at a cottage or a cul-de-sac house, start with the quote form, or write to the office on info@brightviewskylightsexeter.co.uk. The full service is on the main page, and our areas list shows every town we reach.