19.8 road miles south-east of Derby, once a wool town beside Charnwood Forest.
The kitchen worktop is where daylight earns its keep. Tell us where you chop and wash up, and the survey plans the roof window from that spot.
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Kitchens under a pitched roof take roof windows and VELUX windows. A flat-roofed extension is happy with a flat roof rooflight or, if the room has height to spare, a roof lantern, and where the glass forms part of a terrace floor, walk-on rooflights come into play.
Kitchens are workrooms, and the daylight they want is working daylight. It needs to reach the worktop, the hob and the sink without throwing hard shadows from your own body. A roof window on the slope above does that when it is placed correctly, and a lantern does it for a bigger room with a flat roof. A walk-on rooflight is a less common answer, used where a flat roof doubles as a terrace and the room below is short of light.
The full guide
A kitchen can have a window and still feel dark where the cooking happens. This is how we plan a roof window around the worktop rather than the room, and how the roof, the rules and the fitting day follow from that.
Callout 1
Kitchens often have one window, over the sink, and an island or a run of units further in. The sink is bright. The place where you prepare food, a metre or two away, is lit by whatever the room scatters back. Artificial light fills the gap, and it stays on all day.
The worktop is the spot we plan around. We stand where you chop and mark that position on the floor plan. A roof window above and slightly behind that mark drops light onto the surface from the side you do not stand on, so your shoulders do not shade your own hands.
The distance from the window to the worktop decides the size. A unit directly above a worktop can be modest, while a unit across the room needs to be bigger to reach the same place. We prefer to put it where it works and keep it as small as the job allows.
Ventilation counts too. A window that opens above a hob helps clear steam, though it does not replace an extractor, which you should keep. We discuss where the hob sits so the opening does not get in the way of the cooking.
A small test helps before the survey. Stand at the worktop on a bright morning with the lights off. Note where you can still read a label or see the colour of a chopping board, and where you cannot. The difference between those two places is the gap a rooflight is meant to close.
The sink is bright. The place where you prepare food, a metre or two away, is not.
Callout 2
Fitting a roof window is a short job once the survey is done. The work follows an order that keeps the kitchen dry and usable, and it begins on the roof, not in the room.
The first task is to mark the opening from the inside and carry the marks to the roof. The covering is then lifted, the rafters are exposed, and the opening is framed. Where a rafter must be cut, a trimmer takes over its load, leaving the structure as strong as it was.
The frame goes in next. It is fixed to the rafters, packed and levelled, and the flashing kit is fitted around it. Flashing is the part that keeps water out for years, so we take our time with it. A rule of thumb helps here. Water runs downhill, so the top edge of the frame is dressed under the covering, the sides are overlapped, and the bottom edge sits over it. Get that order wrong and water finds its way in. Get it right and the junction stays dry for as long as the unit lasts.
The roof is typically ours for a day with a plain single unit, sometimes stretching to two. Inside the kitchen, the ceiling or sloping lining is cut back, insulated and finished, and the work surfaces below are covered until the end.
Worktops, hob and floor wrapped before any ceiling is touched.
Covering lifted and rafters framed to the marks from the survey.
Frame set level, flashing fitted, covering dressed back around it.
Sash fitted, opened and shut, and checked for a clean seal.
Insulated, plastered and left ready for the decorator.
Callout 3
A kitchen produces heat from the hob, the oven and the dishwasher, so glazing in a kitchen has a different job from glazing in a bedroom. It has to let light in and also cope with a warm, steamy room.
We look at the glass specification alongside the position. The thermal numbers differ by type. The thermal limits differ by unit type, and the quote names the figure that applies to yours. A solar control coating goes further, trimming the heat that arrives on sunny afternoons.
A kitchen with a south-facing slope will warm up fastest. In that case we may suggest a solar control coating, a blind or both. On a north slope, the light is steady and cool, and a plain clear glass is usually enough.
Safety is part of the specification as well. Glass over a work area should hold together if something strikes it, so the build-up of the panes goes in the quote for you to read. Ask about it at the survey if it matters to you, for example if children use the kitchen or a tree overhangs the slope.
Finally, think about cleaning. A roof window that opens fully and rotates lets you wash the outer face from inside, which matters on a slope you cannot reach with a ladder. We point out which models do this when we survey.
Callout 4
Charnwood Borough Council handles planning for Shepshed. Rooflights on houses commonly sit within permitted development, provided they respect the conditions collected in our planning guide, a page worth reading before you pick a slope. Flats and maisonettes cannot use that householder right. Listed buildings need consent in advance. Living in a conservation area? Charnwood can tell you whether Article 4 applies to your street.
Building Control is a separate path. Cutting a new hole in the roof brings Building Regulations into play, so the notice, which we send, reaches either the council or a registered building control approver. Under Part L, a straight swap is controlled work too, and self-certification is possible.
Booking a survey does not require you to know the regulations. Name the room and the spot, and we inspect the roof and tell you which route fits your job before the quote is written. If a kitchen extension is part of the plan, mention it, because the extension may need its own approval and the rooflight can be included in that.
Charnwood Borough, in Leicestershire, includes Shepshed, a market town and parish of about 15,000 people. Domesday Book, 1086, has it as Scepeshefde Regis, meaning the King's hill where sheep graze. The wool trade shaped its medieval prosperity, and a local name, Well Yard on Forest Street, may be a corruption of Wool Yard, where wool was traded.
The town was briefly linked by canal to Loughborough, and to the West Leicestershire coalmines when the Charnwood Forest Canal opened in 1798, though that success was short lived. The Charnwood Forest Railway, nicknamed the Bluebell Line, took passengers until 1931, and part of its old route is now a bridleway. Today the town sits close to Junction 23 of the M1, and the nearest railway station is at Loughborough.
A house's history matters less than its rooms, so the practical starting point is the kitchen and where its worktop sits. At the back of many houses sits a kitchen with one window and a worktop set away from it. An open-plan kitchen may have a bright end by the patio doors and a dim end by the hall. Both leave a worktop that the daylight does not reach, and both are common reasons for a call.
Extensions add another layer. Adding a flat-roofed kitchen extension is one way to gain space, and a lantern or flat rooflight above the island or table brings that space its daylight. Under a pitched roof, a roof window does the job. In both cases, the survey starts at the spot where you work.
On a roof that has been re-covered or altered, we check the structure and the covering rather than rely on how the house looks from the street. We tell you what we find, and the written quote follows from it.
Shepshed lies 19.8 road miles from Derby, comfortably inside our radius.
It can, but we often suggest a position over the preparation end of the worktop or beside the hob instead. Above a hob, glass gathers steam and grease and takes more effort to clean. The light is as good a little to one side. The survey looks at your layout and recommends a position.
Either a flat rooflight or a lantern. A flat rooflight is low and simple, while a lantern gives more height and light in a larger room. The survey checks the roof structure, the falls and the ceiling, then recommends one. Both fall under the rooflight thermal figure in Part L.
It can if the slope faces south and the glass is plain. A solar control coating and a blind cut the heat sharply, and a sash that opens lets warm air escape. We talk through your slope direction at the survey and choose the glazing to suit the way you use the room.
Many house rooflights are permitted development within the conditions our planning guide links, while flats and listed buildings follow different rules. Building Control is a separate matter, and its notice is ours to give when the work is notifiable. Charnwood can confirm any restriction on your street.
The survey form further down, or a WhatsApp message (07880 284133), is the way in; say which room, and which spot in it, needs daylight. Afterwards we visit, inspect room and roof, and hand you a fixed written quote before anything is booked.
Where do you want the light? Tell us in the form: the worktop, the stair, the desk.
No obligation. We survey before we price.
We cover Derby and 30 miles around.
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