26.4 road miles south-east of Derby, in the Soar Valley.
Sileby has older houses from its factory years and new estates on its edges. Tell us which bedroom feels dim and we begin the survey beside the bed.
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Older streets may call for conservation rooflights, while newer roofs take roof windows and VELUX windows, while behind the house, roof lanterns add height to a new extension while a flat roof rooflight keeps things slim.
A place that has changed from a factory village to a commuter settlement has two different kinds of roof standing next to each other. Some are older, with slate or clay tile and uneven rafters. Others belong to recent estates, with machine-cut timbers, concrete tiles and tidy spacing. We treat them differently at the survey, because the older roof tells you more by looking and the newer one by measuring.
The full guide
A bedroom is used at the start and end of the day, and the bed is the spot that counts. In a house with a small window or a north-facing room, the bed can sit in shadow while the window gets all the light. Here is how a rooflight is planned around the place you sleep.
Callout 1
Natural light in the morning helps many people feel awake, and a bedroom that stays grey until late is not an easy place to start the day. A rooflight over or near the bed brings sky light down onto the pillow end of the room. With a blind fitted, the same unit can be darkened at night or on a summer morning.
Position is the first thing we settle. A unit directly above the bed can feel exposed, and some people prefer it a little to one side, so the daylight falls across the room and not straight down onto the sleeper. We mark both options on the plan and talk about which feels right.
Roof pitch makes a difference in a bedroom. In a loft room the ceiling slopes, and a window in the slope gives you sky to look at while lying down. In a room with a flat ceiling below a roof space, the daylight arrives through a light well, and the well can be angled to throw light across the room.
Orientation matters most here. An east-facing slope gives bright morning light, a west-facing slope can heat a bedroom in the evening, and a north slope offers soft, even light from dawn to dusk. We note which way each slope faces at the survey.
A child's room poses the question differently. The bed is usually pushed under the slope, and the spot that matters is the play space in the middle of the floor. We ask where the bed, the desk and the play area sit, then choose the position that serves the room's main use.
Where the bed stands decides which part of the roof the daylight has to come through.
Callout 2
A bedroom glass wants three things: good insulation, control of glare and some resistance to rain noise. Low-emissivity double glazing is the usual choice, and a laminated outer pane reduces the drumming sound of a heavy shower, which people notice in a loft room.
A conservation rooflight is relevant to older roofs. It is a slim metal-framed unit set flush with the slates, and it suits houses where the slope faces the road. Inside a conservation area it is often the favoured choice, since the roofline stays much as it was.
Thermal rules reach bedrooms as they do any room. Part L gives a roof window the window limit and a rooflight a figure of its own, so we confirm which category your unit falls into and print the number on the quote.
Blinds are part of the choice. A blackout blind designed for the frame sits in side channels and cuts out daylight completely, and it can be electric or manual. For a bedroom, we usually suggest ordering it with the window, so the two fit together.
Opening or fixed is a real choice here. A bedroom benefits from fresh air at night, and a pivot window above the bed gives a gentle draught without a draught on the pillow. A fixed unit is simpler and cheaper to maintain, but it cannot ventilate, so it suits a room that already has a good opening window.
If the room faces south, glare and heat gain deserve attention. A solar control coating or an external blind keeps the room comfortable on warm days without darkening it in winter.
Callout 3
In a bedroom, the inside of the opening is as visible as the glass. A well-formed light well is square, smooth and splayed to throw daylight into the room, and it is painted to match the ceiling. Poor finishing shows up every morning, so it is worth doing carefully.
The work follows an order that we set out in the quote, with each step done once and checked.
Painting is the last job and the most visible. The well is left ready for decoration, and we can include a first coat in the written quote if you ask for it. A white or pale finish reflects the most light, and a matt paint avoids glare from the sides of the opening.
If the room beneath has a high ceiling, the well becomes a feature of its own, and you may want to think about shape. A square well is tidy, while a splayed well spreads more light. We draw both so you can choose.
Sheets go down and the opening is laid out from where the bed stands.
Covering lifted, battens cut, rafters trimmed and framed.
Frame fixed; flashing lapped to the roof covering.
Insulated, boarded and splayed so light spreads across the room.
Plaster, paint-ready surfaces and a clean room, then the guarantee.
Callout 4
Sileby's planning questions go to Charnwood Borough Council. House rooflights are frequently permitted development, and its conditions are gathered in our planning guide. For flats and maisonettes there are no householder rights at all, and most changes to a listed building need listed building consent first.
Streets designated as conservation areas can carry an Article 4 direction, so confirm with the council before ordering. Ask Charnwood Borough Council whether your street is covered.
Building Regulations are handled separately. Cutting a new opening through the roof is building work. It has to be approved by the local council or by a registered building control approver, and the firm sends that notification when the job is notifiable. Part L calls a like-for-like replacement controlled fitting, which obliges the new unit to meet the limit its type is given.
Up in the roof, a window can also be the way out of a bedroom, though not on any floor higher than 4.5 m up. To qualify, the unobstructed gap has to give 450 mm or more on every side, and 0.33 m² overall.
Sileby lies at the bottom of a valley created by the nearby River Soar. It industrialised heavily in the Victorian period, with several hosiery and shoe factories in the village until as recently as the 1980s. Most of those premises have since been demolished and replaced by housing, and the former Maltings, part of an old brewery, has been redeveloped. Sileby is now a commuter town for people who work across the region, with a civil parish population of 8,959 at the 2021 census.
For a rooflight, the shift from factories to homes matters. The older houses that grew up around the works are modest in size, with rooms planned for people who spent their days elsewhere. Their bedrooms are often small and look out onto a yard or the next row. Newer estates, built as farmland was sold for housing, have larger plans but often keep the same problem on a landing or stair, where the plan leaves no outside wall.
New homes bring their own advantages. A roof built with trussed rafters may limit where an opening can go, because the trusses carry the roof and cannot simply be cut. We check this at the survey. If a truss lies in the way, we may recommend a different position, a smaller unit or a sun tunnel that can pass between timbers.
On an older roof the problem is different. Hand-cut rafters may not be evenly spaced, and a tile or slate roof may show the marks of earlier work in different materials. We take our time on those roofs, and we explain what we find.
The station on the Ivanhoe Line and the nearby A6 and A46 make Sileby an easy base for commuters, so households here often balance working from home with working elsewhere. A spare bedroom that doubles as an office is easy to imagine, and the bed and the desk then compete for the same patch of light. We plan for both uses when the survey reaches that room.
Wherever you live, start at the survey form and name the bedroom, landing or hall that wants daylight.
Often, but the trusses are structural and cannot be cut without engineering advice. At the survey we check the truss spacing and plan the opening between them, or suggest a sun tunnel, which is narrower and can pass between timbers without altering the structure.
A blackout blind made for the frame shuts daylight out completely on demand, and it can be manual or electric. We suggest ordering it with the window so the two are designed to fit together and operate smoothly.
Charnwood Borough Council holds the records. Where a conservation area applies, some permitted development may be gone under an Article 4 direction, and a flush conservation rooflight may be the wiser choice. The planning guide on this site explains the next steps.
It can, especially with a thin outer pane. A laminated outer pane and well-fitted flashing reduce the drumming. We can specify glazing with better acoustic performance if the bedroom is directly under the slope and you are sensitive to noise.
The seal on that glass unit has gone, and the moisture will not clear. We fit a new unit, or a whole new rooflight where the frame also needs replacing, to current Building Regulations and the thermal limit for its type.
Sometimes. If the bedroom door can stay open or has a glazed panel, a unit near the doorway can serve both. More often we recommend a separate opening for each, because a landing and a bedroom need light in different places. We compare the two plans at the survey.
Where do you want the light? Tell us in the form: the worktop, the stair, the desk.
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