Flat rooflight on an extension roof with tiled roofs behind

Ashby de la Zouch

Ashby de la Zouch terraces, with rooflights and skylights

16.8 road miles south of Derby, home to Ashby de la Zouch Castle.

Ashby mixes Georgian terraces, old timber frames and modern estates, and bathrooms in all three can sit without daylight. Name the basin and the survey starts there.

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Deep terraces, inner bathrooms and loft rooms with little sky

Tiled bathroom with a basin and a round light above — An upstairs bathroom deep inside the house, where the basin is lit by a bulb all year.

Empty room with a window onto neighbouring houses — A loft bedroom under a sloping ceiling, with one small window and a long dim corner.

What suits an Ashby roof

Across the town the usual choices are VELUX windows or other roof windows for rooms in the roof, conservation rooflights for the older buildings, sun tunnels for interior bathrooms, and electric opening rooflights for a unit set high.

A town with a long history carries a long list of roof types. Older houses near the centre often have lofts that were never built to be lived in. Later streets have wider plans and shallower roofs. A bathroom with a basin under the stairs and a bathroom with a basin under the roof need different answers, so the choice of product comes after the visit and is written plainly into the fixed quote.

The full guide

From the Ashby basin up through the slope

People rarely ask for a rooflight over the washbasin. They ask for a brighter bathroom, then point at the mirror. That small spot, the place where you stand to wash and shave and brush your teeth, is where daylight pays back fastest, and it sits right under the roof on many upper floors in this town.

Facing the mirror
Georgian and later roofs
Rules and listed buildings
Warmth and condensation

Callout 1

A bathroom basin that sees real daylight

Think about the minute or two you spend at the basin each morning. The light there is expected to do a lot: show the colour of your face, make a shave or make-up easy, and tell you whether a shirt has a mark on it. A single ceiling bulb does that badly. Daylight does it well, which is why a bathroom rooflight is one of the more satisfying changes a house can take.

The measurements taken at an Ashby bathroom survey

Basin and mirror position: decides where the unit lands
Pitch of the roof above: sets the window type
Ceiling height at the basin: shapes the light shaft
Extractor and ducting run: may need rerouting
Wall behind the mirror: avoids glare on glass

The trick is where the glass goes. A unit centred on the room is not the same as a unit that is centred on the basin. Place it a little behind you, and your shadow falls on the mirror. Place it a little in front, over the basin and mirror line, and the daylight falls on your face as you look in. The survey begins with someone at the basin, looking up, and the slope is marked where that line of sight meets it. That mark, not the middle of the ceiling, is where the opening is planned.

An upstairs bathroom is damp by nature, and glazing in a damp room has to cope with that. A roof window with a ventilation position can be cracked open after a shower to let steam leave, and an electric opening unit does it with a button on the wall or a rain sensor. Either way, the frame is finished with a moisture-tolerant lining so the reveal does not stain or peel.

If the bathroom is on the first floor with a loft above it, the unit sits over a light shaft rather than directly on the ceiling. If the bathroom is in the roof itself, the roof window sits straight in the slope with the ceiling following the pitch. Both can work with a basin placed to suit, and a few centimetres either way at the survey stage can decide whether the mirror gets the benefit.

The room to light is not the bathroom. It is the square metre in front of the mirror.

Callout 2

Terraces, timber frames and newer roofs

Ashby has a bit of everything, and the roof tells you which era you are dealing with. Bath Street has a row of Classical-style houses called Rawdon Terrace, dating from the 1820s, when the town was a spa destination. Houses of that age need their roof read at the survey before any opening is planned. Newer houses have tiled roofs, and these generally take a roof window well.

The older the roof, the more careful the approach. Where the street view matters, a low-profile conservation rooflight lets an old roof take daylight without changing its outline. An ordinary roof window has a deeper frame and a wider opening. Which of the two suits depends on the building, on who looks at it, and on what the council would allow, as the planning chapter explains.

Then there is the roof itself. Old slate laid on sarking boards, tile on battens, or newer concrete tile each takes the flashing differently. We look at the covering and the felt beneath it before agreeing the position. If the roof beneath is sound, the work is straightforward, and for a single unit the roof stage tends to be a one-day or two-day job.

Access can shape the job in a town centre. Where houses run in terraces, there may be a rear passage, a shared yard or no rear access at all, and scaffolding or a hoist has to suit that. We look at the route to the roof at the survey and put the arrangements in the written quote, so that nothing about the day comes as a surprise.

Daylight from the slope or down a tube

Opening unit in the slope

Opens for steam
Gives a view of sky
Needs a clear route down
Suits a bathroom in the roof

Dome and mirrored tube

Needs less structure
Fits where space is tight
Fixed, no ventilation
Suits an inner bathroom

Callout 3

Planning, listing and Building Control in Ashby

Planning decisions here belong to North West Leicestershire District Council, whose site is nwleics.gov.uk. On an ordinary house a rooflight is commonly allowed as permitted development, with conditions that are laid out through the guide to skylight planning and its official links. Householder rights of this kind do not extend to flats and maisonettes.

Ashby needs an extra word of care. Many of the buildings on Market Street, the town's main thoroughfare, are timber framed, and one shop there still shows its original Elizabethan timbers to the street. Buildings of that age are the kind that may be listed, and listing brings a consent requirement for nearly any alteration, a rooflight included. Historic England explains the process at historicengland.org.uk. No conservation area is claimed here on our own authority, so for any older property the council is questioned about your address before a drawing is made.

Building Regulations run in parallel. A brand-new rooflight that interferes with roof timbers is notifiable building work, signed off either by the council's own team or by a private registered approver. Straight replacement of a worn unit falls under Part L as a controlled fitting, so the newcomer must reach its thermal limit. Whichever applies, the notification is ours to send.

Loft rooms bring one more rule. Under the fire rules, rooms count as escapable through the roof only when their floor is 4.5 m or lower above the garden. Over two full storeys, a bigger window changes nothing, and a protected stair is the remedy. That conversation happens at the survey.

Which Ashby buildings need which check

A rough guide to who to ask first.
Building	Ask first	Why
Modern estate house	Planning guide	Usually permitted development
Georgian terrace	The council	Possible local controls
Timber-framed building	The council	May be listed
Flat or maisonette	The council	No householder rights
Loft conversion	Building Control	Escape and structure

Callout 4

Glass choices for a steamy room

A bathroom is the hardest place in the house to put glass. It gets warm, wet air several times a day, and any cold surface collects droplets. Two things help. One is glazing with a warm inner pane, so the surface the steam meets is less cold. The other is a frame with a thermal break, so the metal or timber is not carrying the outside temperature to the inside.

How the reveal is shaped counts for as much as the glass. A deep, splayed reveal catches steam and holds it, while a shallow, well-insulated one lets it drift towards the ventilation. We detail the plasterboard and the finish accordingly and use a moisture-resistant lining where the room demands one.

Should you be replacing an old unit that has gone cloudy or is leaking, check the opening as well as the glass. The timber upstand beneath it may have taken water for years. When a unit is beyond repair, we look at what the frame is sitting on before a new one goes back, because fitting new glass into a damaged upstand shortens its life.

Blinds are worth a thought in a room with a basin in full view of the sky. A light-filtering blind gives privacy and tames summer glare, and a rooflight bought with the blind in mind is cleaner to fit than one added later.

A market town with a spa chapter

Ashby de la Zouch is a market town of about 15,000 people in North West Leicestershire. Its castle was built in the 12th century and became an important fort between the 15th and 17th centuries. The Hastings family took the town and castle in 1464, and William Hastings, the first Baron, strengthened the defences from 1473. Today the town sits at the heart of the National Forest, on the A42, and the old heavy traffic that once ran through the centre has been taken off by the A42 and A511 bypasses.

That history shows in the buildings. Market Street, the town's main street, has many timber-framed buildings, and one shop retains its Elizabethan timbers in full view. Bath Street has Rawdon Terrace, a row of Classical-style houses dating from the 1820s, when Ashby was a spa destination. Further out are later brick houses and the estates that came as the town grew, and the civil parish also takes in the hamlets of Shellbrook to the west and Boundary to the north-west.

For a rooflight, that adds up to three different conversations. In the oldest buildings, the first question is what the council and any listing allow, and the product follows. In the terraces and villas of the nineteenth century, the question is usually the loft: whether there is room and height for a roof window, whether the stair rises into it, and how a bathroom or landing below can borrow light from the roof. In the newer estates, the lofts are often already in use, and the usual request is a bigger or better-placed window for a bedroom or study.

A town this old also has dark spots that nobody has had the chance to deal with. An interior bathroom, a landing between two bedrooms, a hall running the full depth of a terrace: all of these were fine by candlelight and are awkward by modern standards. A sun tunnel or a rooflight in the right slope solves most of them without moving a wall.

The town council works through six wards, but a rooflight does not care which ward you live in. It cares about the slope, the structure and the spot under it, and that is where every Ashby survey begins. A particular basin, desk or stair in mind? Put it on the survey form and the visit begins there.

Ashby de la Zouch questions

My Ashby bathroom has no outside wall at all. Is a sun tunnel enough?

If there is a roof above it, usually yes. A sun tunnel needs far less structure than a full rooflight, and it brings even daylight to the basin area. It does not open, so keep the extractor, and consider a roof window instead if the bathroom sits right under the slope.

I live in an old timber-framed building near Market Street. Can I have a rooflight?

Possibly, though the building may be listed, and listing means consent for almost any alteration. The council is asked about your address first, and the product is then picked to suit, often a slim conservation rooflight.

Does a rooflight in a Georgian-style terrace need planning permission?

It depends on the property and on any local controls. Many houses are covered by permitted development, but older streets sometimes have restrictions. Our planning guide explains the rules, and we check the position with the council for your address.

Will a roof window count as the fire exit for a loft bedroom?

Only where the floor lies at most 4.5 m above ground. Opened, the sash must leave 0.33 m² unobstructed, with the narrowest dimension no less than 450 mm. Above that height a protected stair takes over the escape role, and the survey is where this gets explained.

How soon is the quote fixed after the survey?

A price comes only after the free survey. It is written down, and the figure stays put when fitting day arrives. If Building Control applies, its notification is part of the job.

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Where do you want the light? Tell us in the form: the worktop, the stair, the desk.

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We cover Derby and 30 miles around.