16.9 road miles east of Derby, on a bend of the Trent.
Wilford sits inside Nottingham yet keeps a village feel, with homes from several eras. Tell us which bedroom needs more sky and the survey begins at the bed.
Book a free survey
Rooms in the roof call for roof windows or VELUX windows; older buildings may suit conservation rooflights; a dark landing can use sun tunnels; and a rear extension often takes a roof lantern.
Wilford is a mixed place, so the answer changes from street to street. An older house might want a slim frame that sits low, while a post-war house with a roomy loft might ask for a larger window that opens. A bedroom is the room where this choice is felt most, because you lie there and look up. The glass should give a good view of sky, open easily, and not bake the room on a warm night.
The full guide
A bed is a different kind of spot. You are lying down, you look up, and the roof is the first thing you see in the morning. A rooflight over a bed has to earn its place for sleep as well as for light. This chapter set explains how it is done, from position and blinds to the planning rules for Nottingham.
Callout 1
Most people picture a rooflight in the middle of the ceiling. A bed is rarely in the middle of the room. It is against a wall, often under the lowest part of a sloping ceiling, and the position of the window depends on where your head and eyes are. The gloomy part of a loft bedroom is usually the corner by the eaves, where the slope comes down and the usual window cannot reach.
There are two sensible positions. One is directly above the bed, which gives sky to look at and a cone of morning light across the covers. The other is beside the bed, higher in the slope, which gives light without shining in your eyes at dawn. Which is better depends on how you sleep and on the direction the slope faces. An east slope wakes you early; a west slope gives soft evening light that is lovely for reading. Our survey takes that into account, and we ask when you wake and how you use the room.
The other consideration is headroom. Getting out of bed beneath a sloping ceiling means the window must not catch your head. The lower edge sits at a height that clears you, and the sash opens outwards or upwards without hitting anything inside the room.
Night light matters as much as day light. A blackout blind that runs in channels beside the glass lets the room go properly dark when you want it, and a pleated blind softens things in the afternoon. Bedrooms in the roof are happiest when the blind is chosen with the window, not afterwards.
Callout 2
Wilford's history records modern brick-built houses replacing old thatched cottages, and that change sets the scene for the roofs we meet today. Brick houses mean tiled or slate roofs on timber frames, with rafters at predictable spacing, and that makes a roof window straightforward to fit if the position works.
Later development added the Silverdale housing estate in the late 1950s, on land from the former Wilwell Farm at the south-western edge of Wilford. Houses of that period usually have tiled roofs of moderate pitch and a loft space that was designed for storage, with trussed rafters or traditional cut roofs. In a trussed roof the webs between the rafters limit where an opening can go. A cut roof is more forgiving. Which of the two you have becomes clear once someone is up in the loft, and the position is only promised after that.
The pitch of the roof decides the headroom in the loft, and the headroom decides whether a bedroom is possible at all. A steeply pitched roof gives more usable floor under the slope. A shallow one gives less. Where headroom is short, a window placed lower in the slope or a dormer-style approach may be considered, though that falls outside what a simple roof window does.
The covering decides the flashing. Each of clay, concrete and slate wants a kit of its own, and where a roof has been patched the material around the opening may be replaced locally, so the new window is set in healthy roof. All of that is written into the quote beforehand.
Callout 3
Although Wilford feels like a village, it lies within the city, so planning is handled by Nottingham City Council, which publishes its guidance at nottinghamcity.gov.uk. For a house, a rooflight is often permitted development, though conditions apply and are summarised in our planning guide. That does not cover flats. Listing brings its own consent rules for nearly any alteration, and an Article 4 direction can remove some of the usual rights. Our source material names no conservation area at Wilford, so none is assumed. An older property is still a reason to ask, and the enquiry is made on your behalf.
Fire escape is the rule that bites hardest in a bedroom. Escape through a sloping window is accepted only from a floor standing no higher than 4.5 m above the pavement or garden, and the sash must open to a clear 0.33 m², no side being under 450 mm. A single-storey home with rooms in its roof usually sits within that height. Two full storeys below change the answer to a protected stair, whatever the size of the window. Better to hear that at the survey than after the drawings.
Building Regulations apply to the glass as well. Cutting the roof timbers makes the job notifiable, with sign-off from a registered building control approver or from Nottingham itself. Replacing an old window with a new one is a controlled fitting, and the newcomer must meet the Part L limit that goes with it. The notification is ours to look after.
The bed, the slope and the loft are checked from the pillow's point of view.
A written quote, fixed in price, names the window, the blind and the lining.
Where Building Control applies, the notification is made before any roof is opened.
The window is fitted and flashed, and the roof is closed up weatherproof.
The inside reveal is boarded and finished, ready for decorating.
Callout 4
Glass in the roof heats the room beneath it in summer, and a bedroom is where you notice it most. There are three ways to deal with that, and the best answer uses more than one. The first is the glass itself. A solar-control coating reflects some heat from the sun. The second is a blind fitted outside, which halts the sun's heat before the pane. The third is ventilation, so hot air can leave the top of the room.
A window that opens at the top and the bottom, with a ventilation flap in the frame, lets warm air out while you sleep with the window nearly closed. An electric opening version can be set to open on a timer or react to rain. A bedroom in the roof also benefits from insulation at the rafters. We look at that with you when the window goes in, because the lining around the opening has to meet the insulation properly.
If the room faces east, early sun may be the main complaint. If it faces west, evening heat is more likely. Either way, the blind should match the problem, and the window position can help. A window placed higher in the slope sees more sky and less of the low sun.
For a replacement, a bedroom unit with failed glazing or a rotted frame is beyond repair and ought to be changed. Cold drips and damp patches on the ceiling around the frame are the usual signs.
Wilford is a village and former civil parish, now part of Nottingham, sited at a meander of the River Trent. The place has deep roots. Remains of a paved Roman ford, bordered by oak posts, were found in the Trent at Wilford in 1900, and the settlement appears as Willesforde in Domesday Book, owned by William Pevrel of Nottingham Castle, who also held the lands of nearby Clifton.
The industrial age arrived on the other bank first. Clifton Colliery opened on the north side of the Trent in 1870, and the area opposite Wilford became industrialised. A coal-fired power station, since demolished, was built in the early 1920s on the north bank. South Wilford became part of the West Bridgford urban district in 1935, bounded by Fairham Brook to the west, the Trent to the north and Loughborough Road. Later change reached the edges. The Silverdale housing estate was built in the late 1950s on former Wilwell Farm land, and the Wilford Industrial Estate sits close to the A52 with access to the M1.
For homeowners, what matters is that Wilford has no single type of house. The older part of the village has brick houses that replaced the thatched cottages, and these tend to have pitched roofs over modest rooms. The estates added later, such as Silverdale in the late 1950s, have houses of their own era. We can promise nothing about a particular street without seeing it, but we can say that a mixed place calls for a considered rather than a standard answer.
Living near a river brings its own considerations. Where trees stand close, rooms can lose daylight to leaf cover in summer, and a rooflight set high in the slope can look over the foliage into open sky. Condensation control matters too, with good ventilation and proper lining around the opening.
If you live on the edge of the Silverdale estate or in the older core, the first conversation is the same. What is the room, where is the spot, and what lies above? Fill in the survey form with the room and we will come to you.
Wilford lies inside Nottingham, so the planning authority is Nottingham City Council. For your address the council is asked directly, and you are told whether permitted development covers the work or an application is needed.
Only where the floor's level is 4.5 m or lower above the ground. The sash must also open clear to 0.33 m² at least, with 450 mm the smallest permitted side. With two full storeys beneath the loft, a protected stair does the job instead, and the survey tells you which case yours is.
A blackout blind running in side channels shuts out dawn light completely, while solar-control glass and an outside blind tame the heat. The window can also be placed higher in the slope so the low sun does not fall straight on the bed.
Often yes, though the webs of the truss limit where it can sit. The opening is framed so the load is carried properly around it. We examine the trusses at the survey and say what is possible before a quote is written.
Yes, wherever the job is notifiable. Building Control sign-off for a structural opening goes through Nottingham or a registered approver, while a straight replacement still has to meet its Part L limit. The written quote covers both.
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.
Fill in what you like. We send it as one tidy message from your phone.
