Rooflights and skylights fitted in Burry Port

Burry Port is a port town and community in Carmarthenshire on the Loughor estuary, which the Welsh call Moryd Llwchwr. The Welsh name for the town, Porth Tywyn, means port or bay of the sand dune. Before the Industrial Revolution brought railways and collieries, people here made their living from farming and fishing.

The ground under the valley shaped the town. The land around it holds large amounts of coal as well as limestone.

Coal comes into the story early. Records show coalmining established in the valley as early as 1540, although there was little effective transport to carry it away. From the late 18th century a network of canals, and then tramways, grew up to take coal from inland mines to the sea. In 1768 Kymer opened a canal and quay, part of which has been restored and preserved. The canal cut through the marshes, so boats could travel upstream far enough to reach solid ground where quays could be built.

Burry Port itself is a modern settlement. The village of Pembrey nearby goes back to the Middle Ages, and the medieval tower of the Church of St Illtud shows it. Pembrey Harbour dates from 1819 but proved too small, and Pembrey New Harbour followed in 1836. The population was recorded at 5,680 in the 2001 census and 6,156 in the 2011 census, and an estimate for 2019 put it at 5,998.

From Swansea the town is about 16.6 road miles to the west, which brings it comfortably into our 30-mile radius. Pembrey and Pwll are close by, and we fit in both.

Houses of different ages and shapes call for different glass. A roof window fits a pitched slope. A kerbed rooflight or a lantern fits an extension. A dome and tube fits a landing where no window can go. Roof shape picks the product before taste does.

A single-storey extension is a natural home for a rooflight. The roof is flat, the ceiling below is the middle of the room, and there is rarely a wall to spare for a window. Two kinds of glass answer that, and they behave differently in a wet spell.

A flat roof rooflight lies low. It is a glazed unit on a kerb, so rain crosses it, drops over the edge and finds the roof. Everything depends on that kerb and the roof around it. VELUX designs its flat roof dome for pitches between 0° and 15°, so the roof under a dome can be close to level, but only when the water has a route off and the outlet is clear.

A roof lantern stands up. Its pitched panes shed water to the sides, and the upstand beneath keeps the frame clear of the roof surface. The height adds volume to the room below, and it is also why a lantern is judged differently from a low rooflight when planning comes into it.

The room under the opening deserves thought as well. A garage turned into a living space may have a ceiling that was never planned around daylight. Light from above reaches the middle of the floor, which a wall window cannot, and the glass decides how warm the room stays on a grey afternoon. Under Approved Document L (Wales), a rooflight in an existing home should reach 2.2 W/m²K, and the survey checks the unit against that figure.

Upkeep is mostly a question of reach. A rooflight above a kitchen worktop can be wiped with a cloth on a long handle. One over a double-height space cannot be reached at all, and for those it is worth asking about a self-cleaning finish and an electric opener. Our electric opening rooflights page covers the second.

Lantern or rooflight, the survey starts with the roof beneath. It checks which way the water will fall, where the outlet is, what the ceiling and joists below can take, and whether a kerb or upstand is already there or has to be built. Those answers settle the size of the opening, and no figure comes before the visit.

Walking on the roof is a different thing again. If a flat roof is to double as a terrace, a walk-on rooflight is made for that job, and it is chosen for the load it must carry as well as for the light it gives.

Planning for a Burry Port address is a matter for Carmarthenshire County Council. The town is not within the Gower AONB, so the extra rule for that landscape stays out of it. For a house, the limits that decide whether a rooflight needs an application are set out on the planning permission page for Wales.

A lantern is the case that catches people out. It usually stands well proud of the roof, so adding one to a flat roof that is already there normally falls outside permitted development and needs planning permission. We confirm that with the council at survey. Where the lantern belongs to a brand-new extension, the council gets that question too, before you commit to a design.

Some starting points differ. Householder rights do not exist for a flat or maisonette at all. In other places a council can withdraw the rights across an area by direction, or from one house through a condition on its first permission. A listed house needs listed building consent, applied for through the planning authority, where a rooflight would affect its character, and Cadw publishes the listing record; the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023 now governs it.

Building Regulations come after planning, and they look at structure and energy use. A rooflight in a new opening is likely to need approval, since taking it usually means altering the roof's structure, and the Welsh Government guidance on roof lights says as much. Where the work is notifiable, we handle the Building Regulations notification with local authority building control or a registered building control approver, and you pick which of the two to use.

Loft rooms in Burry Port come under the same rules as anywhere else in Wales. A new or replacement roof window should reach 1.4 W/m²K or Window Energy Rating Band B under Approved Document L (Wales), and the survey checks the unit we propose against that. A roof window in the back slope can add light and air to a loft bedroom. See roof windows for the choice between top-hung and centre-pivot.

First comes the free survey and then the fixed written quote, and once the work is done you hold a written guarantee on our workmanship for ten years. Ring 01792 929062 or request the survey here.