13.2 road miles north of Derby, in coal and brick country.
Alfreton's brick terraces have deep rooms and shallow light. Tell us where the table stands and the survey begins above it.
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Alfreton terrace and semi roofs take VELUX windows and roof windows; a tired unit may want energy efficient rooflights in its place; and an extension at the back suits flat roof rooflights as well as a roof lantern.
Households end up round the table for meals, homework, bills and long conversations, and the daylight above it colours the whole room. In a brick terrace the table can sit mid-plan, a full room away from the nearest window. A rooflight above or beside it brings in the daylight the walls leave out, and the choice of unit follows from the roof over that room.
The full guide
In a brick terrace or a semi with an extension, the table is often as far from a window as it can be. Here is how we bring the light to it, what changes the cost of doing so, and which unit suits which room.
Callout 1
Plenty of older terraces began with one room at the front and one at the back on every floor, and a kitchen tacked on behind. Over the decades, walls have been taken out, extensions added and rooms combined. Today the dining table stands where a wall once was, which can be the point furthest from any window.
The result is a table lit by a pendant for most of the year. Daylight arrives at the edges of the room and gives up before it reaches the middle. People sit there for meals and homework, and they notice the difference when the light is right.
The best fix is almost always from above. A rooflight over or beside the table lights the surface and the faces around it. Above a single-storey Alfreton addition, a lantern will serve, and so will a flat rooflight. On a two-storey house where the table is under a bedroom, the answer is often a sun tunnel through the room above, or a rooflight in the extension behind.
We begin the survey by standing at the table and looking at the ceiling. The questions are simple. What is directly above it? Is there a loft, a bedroom or a flat roof? Can the structure take an opening in the right place? The answers decide the unit before anyone talks about glass.
Think about the people at the table as well as the table itself. A child doing homework needs steady light on the page, and an adult reading the post at the end of the day needs it too. A rooflight that spreads light evenly, with a splayed shaft to soften the edges, does that job better than a bright spot overhead. Many tables are also used for hobbies, so an adjustable blind is worth considering to control glare when a screen or a sewing machine comes out.
The layout of the room beyond the table matters as well. If the table sits between the kitchen and a sitting area, the daylight above it should spill into both. We look at the sightlines at the survey and check that the opening does not throw a bright patch onto the television.
Where the table stands is where the light has to land.
Callout 2
Two houses on one street can need different work for what looks like the same rooflight. The reasons are practical, and they are worth knowing about before a quote arrives, because they explain the figures.
The first is the size of the opening. A wider or longer unit needs larger trimmers, more glass and a bigger light well. The second is the roof itself. A tiled roof, a slate roof and a flat roof each take a different flashing or upstand, and each needs different materials. The third is the glazing. Solar control glass, an opening sash or an electric motor each add something to the unit.
The fourth is the light well. A bungalow with a shallow void above the ceiling needs hardly any lining, while a house with a deep gap between slope and ceiling needs far more boarding and insulation to finish the shaft properly. The fifth is access, which depends on the plot, the height of the eaves and the route to the roof.
Not one of these items changes on the day. The survey fixes them, the written quote names them, and the quote stays as it was written.
Callout 3
Alfreton grew on coal, ironstone, brickmaking and tilemaking, and its wide spread of brick terraced housing dates from that period. Brick walls under tiled or slate roofs make up the older streets, with newer semis and estates beyond. A good rule is to let the roof over the room choose the unit.
A pitched roof over a loft bedroom takes a roof window, and a VELUX is a sensible choice for the opening and the fit. Behind an Alfreton terrace, the flat kitchen roof takes a low flat rooflight, or a taller lantern if the ceiling permits. A landing or hall with a loft overhead takes a sun tunnel. The table opposite sets these side by side, and we adjust each pairing to the real roof at the survey.
On a terrace, party walls are a practical consideration. A rooflight too close to a shared wall is awkward to flash and to access, so the position may move a little away from it. The loft may also be shared in places, and we work around that.
| Room | Roof above | Unit | Light lands on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loft bedroom | Pitched tile | VELUX window | The bed and floor |
| Kitchen extension | Flat | Flat rooflight | The worktop |
| Dining extension | Flat | Roof lantern | The table |
| Landing or hall | Pitched, loft over | Sun tunnel | The stairs |
| Bathroom | Pitched | Roof window | The basin |
Callout 4
Amber Valley Borough Council decides planning matters in Alfreton, with its guidance on ambervalley.gov.uk. A conservation area or a listing would show up there, so your address is checked before the survey and the result passed to you.
Householder permitted development often covers a rooflight on an ordinary Alfreton house, and the planning guide we publish explains the conditions beside a link to the government text. Flats and maisonettes cannot use that route, and a listed house needs listed building consent.
A new rooflight in an Alfreton roof changes the structure, which makes it building work, and we notify the local authority or a registered building control approver whenever the job is notifiable. Swapping like for like in Alfreton remains controlled work under Part L, and the two Alfreton targets differ, with roof windows aiming at 1.4 W/m²K while rooflights aim at 2.2 W/m²K.
Any Alfreton loft bedroom also needs its escape route thought through. Escape from an Alfreton loft bedroom is covered by Approved Document B. In an Alfreton house the roof window route works only for a floor lying 4.5 m or less over ground level. An Alfreton bedroom escape window needs 0.33 m² of unobstructed opening, each side at least 450 mm long. A loft conversion over two Alfreton storeys relies on a protected stair.
Alfreton is home to about 8,800 people, in Derbyshire's Amber Valley district. With the neighbouring villages of Ironville, Riddings, Somercotes and Swanwick, which were historically part of its manor and urban district, the population was about 24,500 in 2001. The town was once a Norman manor, and it centred on a market place at the top of the King Street hill.
The economy turned on the ground beneath it. Coal and ironstone lay close to the surface, and in places coal seams were so shallow that they were ploughed up. Mining and iron-working grew in importance, and with them came brickmaking and tilemaking. That is why the area has so much brick terraced housing from the industrial period.
Brick terraces have particular features that matter to a rooflight. The rooms are usually deep, the stairs steep and narrow, and the back additions often one storey with a flat roof. Windows sit at the front and the back, leaving the middle of the house to borrow light from both ends. Roofs are pitched, usually tiled or slate, with a loft that may be used, boarded or left alone.
Around the older streets, interwar and post-war semis and newer estates add wider plots and larger kitchens. Many have loft conversions or rear extensions, and some have both. Those are the houses where a roof window above a bedroom, a sun tunnel above a landing and a lantern over the dining table all find a place.
The A61 and A38 are the main roads, and the A38 links to junction 28 of the M1. Alfreton station lies north-east of the town and reopened in 1973. On fitting day the last stretch to the house is what counts, and its access is planned at the survey and set out in the quote.
It goes wherever the structure above lets daylight reach the table. That may be a flat rooflight in an extension, a roof window in a sloping ceiling or a sun tunnel through a room above. At the survey we take a position at the table, look up and trace the route.
The size of the opening, the roof covering, the glazing, the depth of the light well and the access all alter the work. The written quote lists each, so you can see why, and the figure is fixed ahead of the day.
Often, depending on the roof structure and the council. The rafters and party walls are checked, a size code that fits between them is chosen, and the Building Control notice goes in where needed. Your address is checked for planning first.
They differ. A sun tunnel delivers steady daylight, no sky view, and asks for only a small opening, whereas a rooflight gives more light plus the view. Over a landing with a loft above, the tunnel can be the tidier option.
Alfreton houses often get rooflights through permitted development, provided the conditions in our planning guide are met. In Alfreton a flat or maisonette lacks those rights, and any listed house needs consent. Amber Valley Borough Council is asked about your Alfreton address before we visit.
Yes. Blinds are made for roof windows and rooflights, from light-filtering to full blackout, and they can be manual or motorised. A blind over a dining table helps with glare on a bright day and keeps the room cooler in summer. We name the blind in the written quote.
Where do you want the light? Tell us in the form: the worktop, the stair, the desk.
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