Skylights and rooflights in West Hill

West Hill is not one age of house. The oldest buildings sit along the lanes that run down towards the valley, where you find small cottages in cob and stone under render, some still thatched, with thick walls and window openings that were never quite square. They were built for people who worked the land around Ottery, and they have the low eaves and steep roofs that go with that.

Much of the village as you see it today grew later. Houses were put up on the higher ground from the late nineteenth century onwards, and the Victorian and Edwardian villas from that period still stand in generous plots, with bay windows, tall chimneys and, in many gardens, mature trees. Brick, render and slate are the common materials, and the roofs are steep enough to hold a proper loft room.

So our opening question on any enquiry is where in West Hill you live, because a thatched lane cottage and a 1960s bungalow have almost nothing in common above the ceiling.

The twentieth century filled in the gaps. Between the wars and again after the war, West Hill took a long run of bungalows and chalet-style houses, plus some detached family homes, of brick or render with concrete tiles on top. Their ceilings are plasterboard, their roofs are regular and their loft spaces are usually easy to work in. These are the houses where new glazing goes in most simply, whether a roof window or a tube of light.

So our opening question on any enquiry is where in West Hill you live, because a thatched lane cottage and a 1960s bungalow have almost nothing in common above the ceiling.

Few West Hill homes need a planning application for a rooflight, because the householder permitted-development rights cover a modest unit. Those rights carry a few short conditions about how far the glass projects, how high it sits and what is allowed on a side slope, and they are listed in the guide linked below rather than repeated here.

That is the general position, and local circumstances can change it. A conservation area normally keeps the right unless the council has removed it by direction, and a listed building needs consent before any change to its exterior, a rooflight included. Flats and maisonettes have no householder rights at all. We would not like to tell you what applies to your particular street from memory, so ask East Devon District Council whether a designation or direction covers your property. The conditions themselves are in the Devon rooflight permissions guide, and the council and the Planning Portal are where you confirm them.

Building Regulations are a separate matter from planning.

Several of the older lane cottages around West Hill may be listed, and a listed thatched cottage is the case where it pays to ask the conservation team before anything else. For those, a slim, low unit on the least visible slope is the kind of design that tends to get a hearing, and consent is explained on our listed building rooflight page.

Building Regulations are a separate matter from planning. Opening up a roof for a new rooflight is building work, because rafters are cut or trimmed and the window has to satisfy Part L. Exchanging an entire unit has to be notified as well. The notification is ours to make, and the only exception is a sealed glass unit changed on its own in the frame already there.

Across the housing stock here the survey is where we confirm the choice against your own roof, but the starting points are fairly consistent.

• A Victorian or Edwardian villa with a loft room usually suits a roof window that is either centre-pivot or top-hung, set in the slate and sized to the rafter spacing and the room below.
• A bungalow with a dark hall or inner bathroom suits a sun tunnel, which asks for only a small opening and a short run through the loft.
• Kitchen and garden-room extensions are lit by a low flat unit or a roof lantern over an upstand.
• Older cottages and listed houses are best served by a conservation unit in the back slope, or by no new glass in the roof at all where the covering is thatch.
• Chalet houses converted at the top often take a pair of roof windows, laminated on the inner pane.

A bedroom facing west may want solar control coating, whereas the landing on the north side wants clear, high-performance glazing

Glass is chosen by the room it serves. A bedroom facing west may want solar control coating, whereas the landing on the north side wants clear, high-performance glazing that admits as much daylight as the frame size allows. Laminating the inner pane overhead is sensible, and acoustic glass is available if a room needs it.

All of our work meets the Building Regulations in force, with heat loss under Part L covered for both new and replacement glazing.

The village is a short drive from Ottery St Mary and not much further from Exeter, which makes a visit easy to fit in. The survey begins outdoors with the roof, then goes inside, to the room below and the loft above, where we take the depth from roof to ceiling, find out what the ceiling consists of and how it has held up, and make a note of anything bearing on the finish.

Access in the village varies from open drives on the newer roads to narrow lanes where a lorry cannot turn, so part of the survey is planning how materials arrive and where a tower or scaffold would stand. If you live on a private lane, tell us how the surface and the gradient are, because it changes how we deliver.

The price comes to you in writing, with the details of the room's finish settled on paper beforehand. We contain the dust, tidy up as we go and leave the room clean, and the job is covered by a workmanship guarantee lasting 10 years. Whether it is a lane cottage or a hilltop bungalow, the quote form is the place to begin, and a WhatsApp or an email to info@brightviewskylightsexeter.co.uk works as well.

Nearby, we also work in Ottery St Mary and Newton Poppleford, and every other town is on the areas page. For the full range of work, see the main skylight and rooflight page.