Skylight and rooflight fitting in Nant-y-moel

Nant-y-moel stands on the River Ogmore, in Bridgend county borough, and it is one of the villages that make up the Ogmore Valley. It includes the formerly separate village of Pricetown. The name means stream from the bare mountain.

Until the middle of the 19th century the Ogmore Valley was mainly a farming community, and then coal mining spread across South Wales. Part of the old colliery site is now Aberfields, known locally as The Planka, which hosts community sports and leisure activities. A free weekly 5 km parkrun has run there since 19 August 2023.

Before 1996, the village was a ward of Ogwr Borough Council and elected one councillor. Today, planning decisions are made by Bridgend County Borough Council.

The colliery ground now holds a sports and leisure site, and a primary school in the village was one of the few in the valley that stayed open when the others merged into the new Ogmore Primary School in July 2003. Nothing in that history tells you what is on top of a given house, so the roof itself is the starting point.

Set off from Swansea and head east for 29.11 miles by road, and you reach Nant-y-moel, near the far edge of our working area. Close neighbours where we fit rooflights include Ogmore Vale and Blaengarw.

Here is how the house types go in general, wherever they stand. A terraced home or cottage has a pitched roof and often a modest rear slope, so one roof window over the back bedroom or the bathroom suits it. A later semi or detached house leaves more roof to work with, which means two windows or a sun tunnel come into play. A flat extension at the back takes a flat rooflight or a lantern, provided the roof beneath falls the right way.

The name points to a bare mountain behind the village, and a roof close to open ground is a fair reason to look hard at flashing and fixings. A roof window lapped properly into its covering stays weathertight. Roof coverings differ from house to house, so the survey notes what yours is made of before any product is chosen.

For a house here, Bridgend County Borough Council is the planning authority. On the Welsh Government's boundary map there is a conservation area for the village, listed under a spelling without hyphens, and its edge lies a couple of hundred metres from the point we treat as the village centre. Whether your own house is inside the line is a question for your address. The council's conservation and design page is the place to ask.

In Wales, a house inside a conservation area needs planning permission before a new rooflight goes into its roof slope. Our guide to conservation-area rooflight planning describes how an application runs.

Nant-y-moel is nowhere near the Gower AONB. Of the protected-land rules, the one that matters in the village is the one for conservation areas, which the guide linked above sets out.

Away from the protected land, some houses can add a rooflight as permitted development, subject to the tests in the Welsh planning guide. Not every owner starts there. Residents of flats and maisonettes hold no householder permitted development; an Article 4 direction lets a council withdraw it from a district; a condition on a house's first permission can remove it. The council's planning staff can say where a particular house stands, and a Lawful Development Certificate is the formal route to a written answer.

A like-for-like replacement of an old roof window is still building work in the regulations' eyes. Repair is the exception, and so is fitting new glass into a frame you are keeping, which the energy rules leave alone.

If a house is listed, any rooflight that would touch its character needs listed building consent. The local planning authority takes the application, with Cadw advising, and starting work without consent can be an offence.

Building Regulations are the separate matter. Rafters and framing usually have to be altered to make a new opening in a Nant-y-moel roof, which then has to carry the unit, which is why approval is normally needed. Where the work is notifiable, we handle the Building Regulations notification with local authority building control or a registered building control approver.

A back bedroom under a pitched slope comes first, because it is where rain is heard first. The roof windows page covers the kinds. In Wales a new or replacement roof window should achieve 1.4 W/m²K, or Window Energy Rating Band B, and VELUX lists reduced rain noise among its glazing options for rooms where people sleep.

A kitchen with a flat roof over the extension benefits from a flat roof rooflight. A rooflight in Wales should reach 2.2 W/m²K. Over a kitchen or garage extension, a rooflight of any kind has to cope with the weather coming down on it with nothing to shelter it. Where there is height for a roof lantern, a pitched glass roof can stand over the kitchen. For a lantern on an extension that has not been built yet, we check the planning position with Bridgend.

At the top of the stairs, a landing under the loft may have no wall on the outside to take a window. A sun tunnel takes daylight from a dome on the roof, through a mirrored tube, to a ceiling diffuser. It suits a landing under a loft where no wall window can be fitted.

Some owners already have a rooflight that needs attention. If the old unit has fogged between its panes, the sealed unit has usually failed, and we handle misted rooflight replacements. The VELUX windows page shows how an existing unit's code points you to its replacement.

Electric operation suits glass beyond arm's reach. VELUX describes its solar and electric roof windows as having a rain sensor built in that shuts the window as rain starts. Our electric opening rooflights page covers that in more depth.

Wet days also bring damp into rooms from the inside. Washing on a rack, a bath, a pan on the hob: all of it adds to the moisture a pane has to shed. A roof window that opens a little lets you vent a room when the air outside is dry, and approved ventilation guidance in Wales says the home's ventilation should be no worse after a window is replaced than before it.

Everything starts with a free survey. A fixed written quote follows, and a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing completes the job. Ring 01792 929062 or send the enquiry form.