Skylights and rooflights in Tiverton

Tiverton grew rich on wool and then on lace, and the houses show both stories. A run of fires, the last great one in 1731, destroyed a good part of the old town, and the streets that came back were built largely in brick and stone, which is why the centre has a more orderly Georgian look than many Devon market towns. Brick fronts, sash windows and slate roofs set behind parapets or deep eaves are the pattern you see around St Peter Street and the streets that run off it.

The nineteenth century added another layer. John Heathcoat moved his lace machinery to Tiverton in the early 1800s, and the mill brought a wave of workers' housing: long terraces of brick and render, with narrow rear yards and small back additions. Westexe, on the far side of the river from the old centre, is a good example of that kind of Victorian town housing. Larger villas stand on the higher ground, and a handful of older cob and stone cottages survive in the lanes at the edge of town and in the villages round about.

So two Tiverton houses a mile apart can need a completely different approach, and the first thing we ask is when yours was built.

The twentieth century filled the hillsides. Interwar semis, postwar council housing, bungalows and 1970s and 1980s estates spread out in every direction, and in recent years new estates have been built on the eastern side of the town. These later homes tend to have regular roof structures, plasterboard ceilings and loft spaces that are straightforward to open up.

So two Tiverton houses a mile apart can need a completely different approach, and the first thing we ask is when yours was built.

Mid Devon is the council that decides planning matters in Tiverton. Most houses are covered by the general permitted development allowance for rooflights, which has conditions attached: the unit may rise 150mm above the slope and no further, it may not top the ridge, and a window in a side slope has limits of its own, including a minimum height of 1.7m for any opening part.

Parts of Tiverton are designated conservation areas, and the boundaries follow the historic streets rather than the whole town. The allowance carries on inside a conservation area, though an Article 4 direction may remove it. Before choosing a design, check with Mid Devon's planning team whether your street is covered and whether any direction is in force. The answer can differ between two roofs that look the same from the road.

A listed building is different again. There are listed houses in the older streets of Tiverton, and a rooflight, like any other outside change, needs listed building consent, and the cutting of the ceiling and roof structure inside is covered by the same application. Flats and maisonettes, some of them in converted mill and town buildings, are outside the householder allowance, which makes a rooflight there a planning application.

Where the roof is a visible slope of old slate, a shallow conservation rooflight in the back pitch is usually the easier proposal to defend. Most of the general limits are explained in the guide to planning and Building Regulations we keep for Devon, and our conservation rooflights page explains the products designed for protected roofs.

Choosing a product starts with the house and what the room needs from it. For Tiverton's housing, the pairings go like this:

• For Georgian brick houses near the centre, a slim conservation rooflight on a rear slope works best, placed so that it does not fight the sashes below.
• Victorian terraces in Westexe and around the mill suit a roof window in the loft, or a sun tunnel above a dark landing where the roof space is tight.
• Kitchen and dining extensions built on the back call for a roof lantern, or a pane of glass for a flat roof carried on an upstand.
• Interwar and postwar homes can take a roof window in the existing loft, with the choice of hinge decided by how high the sill sits above the floor.
• Newer estate homes usually take a standard roof window between the trusses of a trussed roof, so the structure is left alone.

Polyurethane is the usual choice for bathrooms and kitchens, because it copes with steam better than bare pine.

A centre-pivot window, whether in painted white pine or in white polyurethane, suits a loft room where you want easy cleaning and a wide opening. A top-hung one opens outwards and gives more headroom at the sill in a steep, low room. Polyurethane is the usual choice for bathrooms and kitchens, because it copes with steam better than bare pine.

Glazing depends on the room too. A loft bedroom under a hot south-west slope may suit a solar control coating; a landing on the cooler side is better with clear glass of high thermal performance. Either way, the inner pane is best laminated where it sits over your head. A complete change of rooflight, frame and glass together, counts as notifiable building work just like a new opening, and the notification is ours to handle. A misted sealed unit swapped into a frame that is sound does not need one.

Tiverton is straightforward to reach from Exeter, and nearby places such as Cullompton, Bampton and the villages around them are within easy range, so a survey visit can usually be arranged without fuss. The visit starts outside, looking over the roof, then moves indoors and up into the loft. We measure how deep the build-up is from roof to ceiling, note the ceiling material and write down whatever will shape the finish.

Access varies a lot across the town. The streets near the centre and in Westexe are narrow, with parked cars along them, so the survey has to decide where materials can be dropped off, and whether a scaffold or access tower goes up and would end up on the pavement or the road. On the hillside estates the issue is more often the slope of the drive or the gap beside the house. We plan for it before the day rather than on it.

Next comes a written quote for your own roof, whether that is a Westexe terrace or an estate semi, and we begin only when you have accepted it. We contain the dust, tidy the room afterwards, and a 10-year guarantee covers our workmanship. A visit can be requested through the quote form, or by messaging us on WhatsApp or writing to info@brightviewskylightsexeter.co.uk. The homepage describes the rest of what we do, and the areas page shows where else we work.