Skylights and rooflights in Carmarthen

Carmarthen stands on the site of a Roman town, and it can make a claim to be the oldest town in Wales. While Britain was a Roman province, the place was the civitas capital of the Demetae tribe and went by the name Moridunum, meaning Sea Fort. The Welsh name, Caerfyrddin, is read as Merlin's fort, or possibly as Sea-town fort. Either reading puts a fort at the heart of the name, which fits a town that stands on a Roman site.

In the middle ages the town was two settlements side by side: Old Carmarthen around the priory and New Carmarthen around the castle. They became one borough in 1546. The Black Death of 1347 to 1349 reached the town along the river trade. By the middle of the nineteenth century other places had overtaken Carmarthen in size, as settlements grew up across the South Wales Coalfield.

The 2021 census counted 14,636 people in the community and 16,455 in the wider built-up area. Carmarthen lies in Carmarthenshire, north-west of Swansea, and the drive is 27.85 miles. That falls inside our working radius of 30 road miles. Close neighbours include Abergwili and Ferryside.

Two crossings of the Tywi stand out in the town's record. The concrete A484 road bridge, designed by the Welsh architect Clough Williams-Ellis, was completed in 1937. A cable-stayed footbridge followed in 2005, running from the railway station to the foot of Blue Street so that pedestrians reach the town centre across the water.

A town with this much history will hold roofs of many ages, from pitched slopes to flat-roofed additions at the back, and no one product fits all of them. The survey comes first and the product list second.

All of that history adds up to a town with roofs from many periods, and a rooflight job has to read the roof it is given. Before choosing any glass, the roof's pitch, covering and age are the first things to establish, and the survey does that.

The Welsh Government's conservation-area map names areas in and around the centre of Carmarthen. They include Carmarthen Town, Lammas Street, Water Street, The Quay / Towyside and The Parade / Esplanade, along with others. The map is a guide. It does not draw lines property by property, and whether one house sits inside a boundary is a question for that address.

In Wales a new rooflight in a house inside a conservation area needs planning permission. Carmarthenshire County Council keeps its own page on conservation areas, and it is the right place to settle a doubtful address.

Outside those areas, a rooflight in a house can be permitted development if it meets the limits in our Wales guide to skylight planning permission. Flats and maisonettes carry no such rights. A council order called an Article 4 direction can withdraw those rights from houses in an area, and a condition on the house's original permission can withdraw them from just one.

Listed houses need listed building consent where a rooflight would touch their character. Applications go to the local planning authority, and the work is covered by the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023. Cadw notes that putting uPVC in place of traditional windows on a listed building will not normally be acceptable.

Glass made with older roofs in mind has its own page, conservation rooflights, and the planning application comes before any of it.

Where a house sits near the edge of a boundary and nobody can say how it falls, the planning team at the council will advise. A Lawful Development Certificate records the outcome in writing.

On the map, the nearest boundary lies about 100 metres from the town's reference point and the furthest of those in range about 650 metres, so a good part of the historic centre sits close to one line or another. Housing at Maes-yr-Ysgol and Llys Model, behind St Catherine Street, lies next to a graveyard that local historians link with a plague pit for mass burial. Those streets show how the town packs very different ages of building into a small space, and why the check goes address by address.

Listed building consent reaches inside the building as well as outside it. Historic fixtures, fittings and details count, and minor work can need consent. Doing the work without it can be a criminal offence.

Approved Document L (Wales) sets the energy figures. A new or replacement roof window should reach 1.4 W/m²K, or Window Energy Rating Band B, and a rooflight should reach 2.2 W/m²K. For an old house, the guidance allows a fallback on windows and roof windows when the character of the building rules out the full figure: 1.2 W/m²K at the centre of the pane, or low-e secondary glazing. No fallback exists for rooflights.

Building control looks at more than the energy figure. Fitting a new rooflight starts with an opening in the roof, and the framing around it has to take the weight of the unit, with strengthening added where needed. Near a boundary the fire performance of the glazing comes into the assessment.

A rooflight's U-value is taken over its whole developed surface, which is often more than the size of the hole in the roof, and a kerb supplied with the glass counts inside the 2.2 figure.

Glazing that sits low is covered by Approved Document N in Wales. It treats the zone from floor level up to 800 mm in walls and partitions as a critical location, where the glass should break safely, resist impact or come in small panes, or else be permanently protected.

A straight swap of one roof window for another of the same kind still counts as building work. Repairing one does not, and for the energy rules the same goes for renewing the glass alone while the existing frame stays. A replacement should also keep the home's ventilation at least at its old level, so the vents on the old frame are looked at before a new one is chosen.

That detail matters on an older roof in Carmarthen, where a roof window may be the better match for a pitched slope. A roof window sits in the plane of the slope, and a top-hung or centre-pivot sash opens in the way the room needs.

At the back of the house a flat roof over a kitchen takes a flat roof rooflight, and the council confirms the position of any roof lantern on a new extension before it is ordered.

A landing with no outside wall can use a sun tunnel. The dome goes in the roof, the tube runs down and the diffuser sits in the ceiling.

Existing glass that has fogged between its panes needs its sealed unit replaced, and we handle misted rooflights as well as new fittings.

A fixed written quote follows the free survey, and a ten-year workmanship guarantee on paper follows the fitting. To start, call 01792 929062 or use the form.