Rooflights and skylights fitted in Abercraf

Abercraf is a village in Powys, in the community of Ystradgynlais and within the historic boundaries of Brecknockshire. It lies beneath the slopes of Cribarth, the small mountain known for its Sleeping Giant outline, which can be seen clearly from the nearby A4067, the Swansea to Brecon road. The giant's face owes something to old limestone quarrying on the mountain, so the profile above the village is partly natural and partly worked.

The village has an industrial past, too. A small ironworks was set up here in 1824 by the local coalowner Thomas Harper, built to use the local anthracite for smelting. The British Iron Company bought the works the following year, and the furnaces went out in 1826 after production costs ran far above the selling price. The works had been set up to exploit two patents, granted in 1823 and 1824 to Harper and his fellow coalowner John Christie, who also owned the Brecon Forest Tramroad. The British Iron Company paid £19,541 for the works in 1825 and leased minerals on Cribarth at the same time. Coal carried on being worked, and was still being raised in 1841, when the local agent gave a statement to the Children's Employment Commission. Between 1965 and 1991, the village also hosted a Royal Observer Corps monitoring bunker.

From Swansea the road distance is roughly 17 miles, heading north-east, comfortably within our 30-mile road radius. Ystradgynlais and Seven Sisters are both within our area, and so are Coelbren and Banwen.

For anyone thinking about a rooflight, the lesson of all that history is modest. Houses of different ages and shapes call for different glass, so we look at the roof before we talk about the product.

A free survey is the first step, and a fixed written quote follows it. The survey is where we find out which way the slope faces, how much rafter there is to work with, what the loft is like, and where a window or a sun tunnel can go without fighting the rafters.

A rooflight for an Abercraf house is a matter for Powys County Council as the local planning authority. Whether it needs an application depends on the house and the roof, and the planning guide for skylights across Wales lays out the conditions. Please read it with your own roof in mind.

Some houses start with different rules. Householder permitted development leaves flats and maisonettes out entirely. The rights can also be removed where the council has made an Article 4 direction for the area, or where the original planning consent for the house carried a condition taking them away. A listed house is its own category: alterations that change its special character need listed building consent, applied for through the local planning authority, with Cadw consulted. Doing the work without that consent can be a criminal offence.

Ask early if any of this might apply. The council's planners can advise, and a Lawful Development Certificate gives formal certainty.

The other track is Building Regulations. Cutting a new opening for a rooflight generally brings in approval, since making the opening usually means changing the roof's structure; the roof must then bear the unit's weight, and the unit has to keep heat in. In Wales you can pick local authority building control or a registered building control approver. Replacing an existing roof window with a similar one is building work as well, though replacing the glass alone is different. We handle the notification where it applies.

Energy limits come with it. The replacement should reach 1.4 W/m²K for a roof window or 2.2 W/m²K for a rooflight. Those figures come from Approved Document L (Wales), and a window that cannot reach 1.4 on a building of historic interest has a fallback in the same document.

Fire escape belongs here too. A roof window gives escape only where it is sized and placed as an escape window, and Approved Document B (Wales) sets the rules for that. The roof window Building Regulations page has the numbers.

Rooms in a village house rarely line up with the roof, so it helps to take them in turn. Start in the loft bedroom, because that is where the weather meets the glass most directly. A roof window in the slope brings in light and lets the room be aired. A shallow roof has its own low-pitch version of the window, built for that angle. An electric opening rooflight adds the rain sensor, and that suits a room that is empty all day.

A landing between the bedrooms may have no window at all. Light from a sun tunnel reaches it through the roof, and the tube can be rigid or flexible depending on the route past rafters and a water tank. On a showery afternoon the effect is of a soft grey daylight, enough to find the stairs by without switching on a bulb.

Kitchens and living rooms at the back of a house are often extended, and an extension roof is usually flat. Light from above comes from a flat rooflight or from a lantern. Setting a lantern on a flat roof already in place will normally mean applying for permission, as it stands tall, and we confirm what applies with the council at survey. If the lantern forms part of a new extension, that is a point to settle with the council as well. VELUX gives its dome a range of 0 to 15 degrees of roof pitch, which tells you why a flat roof needs its fall.

A roof lantern also needs something to stand on. Brett Martin's technical note for its lantern sets the builder's upstand at 150 mm tall as a minimum, and recommends that it be level. Up to five degrees of pitch is possible, and the note warns it may look lopsided.

Misting between the panes of an older unit is a different matter. Failed seals can be fixed by replacing the sealed unit or the whole rooflight, and swapping out misted units comes as readily to us as a fresh installation, and the survey tells you which one a misted rooflight needs.

The dome on a sun tunnel stays small, so there is little surface for rain to sit on. Inside, the tube carries daylight to the diffuser, and the landing stays bright when the sky outside has gone the colour of slate. That is a comfortable arrangement in a house where the stairs have no window of their own.

Each job starts with a visit. Book it by phone on 01792 929062, or send the details through the quote form. A 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing comes with finished work.