Rooflights and skylights fitted in Crynant

Until coal was found in the 19th century, Crynant was a rural, agricultural community of scattered farms. It first appeared on maps as Capel Creunant, and Y Creunant is its Welsh name today. The first colliery, Maes Mawr, opened in 1874. Men looking for work in the mines began to arrive, and the village started taking shape around the Square.

Brynawel Pen Pentre, a terrace of old cottages, was the first street built in the village, and the old Blaenant Colliery site lies at its top end. Pen Pentre, the Square, Maes Mawr and Station Road all date from the 19th century. Station Road takes its name from the Neath and Brecon Railway, which was built in the mid-1860s and ran through the village. On a site where a colliery closed in 1968, the Cefn Coed Colliery Museum now stands.

Swansea is 14.72 road miles away and Crynant sits north-east of it, comfortably inside the area we serve. Close neighbours on the map include Resolven and Seven Sisters.

None of that tells you what is on your roof. As a general rule, terraces from the 19th century are pitched, covered in slate or tile, and have narrow rear slopes. That suits one roof window, lighting a rear bedroom or a bathroom, better than a large opening. Semis from later decades usually give the back slope more width.

A flat-roofed extension at the back changes the picture, because the choice there is between a flat rooflight and a lantern. Your own house may follow none of these patterns, which is why the first visit is a look at the roof itself.

Hirfynydd's lower slopes mean roofs at different heights and facing different ways. That is a reason to choose the flashing and the opening mechanism roof by roof, and the survey is where it gets decided.

For a Crynant address, planning sits with Neath Port Talbot Council. The village is nowhere near Gower's protected landscape, so that layer of control is absent. For an ordinary house, whether a new rooflight needs a planning application depends on the house itself and on any conditions attached to it. Our planning guide for skylights in Wales lays the tests out in one place.

Flats and maisonettes start from a weaker position, because householder rights do not reach them. Houses can lose their rights too: a council may make an Article 4 direction, and the original planning permission for a house may carry a condition that removes them. On a listed house, a rooflight that touches its special character calls for listed building consent, and Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic environment service, explains the process.

If you are on the fence, ask the planning team at the council. A Lawful Development Certificate settles the point in writing, and a buyer's solicitor will be glad of it when the house is sold.

Building Regulations are a separate matter from planning. A brand-new roof opening will generally need approval: making room for it usually means changing the roof's structure, and the roof then carries the unit's weight. You pick the body that checks it: the council's building control team, or a registered building control approver. If the job is one that has to be notified, that notification is ours to make.

Replacement is a different case. Swapping an existing roof window for a new one is still building work, but a repair is not. The new roof window should reach 1.4 W/m²K or Window Energy Rating Band B under Approved Document L (Wales), and a new rooflight on a kerb should reach 2.2 W/m²K.

A loft bedroom is where an open roof window faces its hardest test. Leave it on the latch while you are out and a squall can find the gap. On the solar and electric VELUX range, the window carries its own rain sensor, which closes it once rain starts, so the room stays aired on dry days and shut on wet ones. The choices are set out on our electric opening rooflights page.

The same bedroom can take a roof window in the slope, hinged at the top so the sash swings out over your head, or pivoted at the middle so the outer glass turns inward for cleaning. A loft room may also need a window that can serve as a way out in a fire, and that sits with the Building Regulations, not with planning.

Many a landing has no outside wall and no loft space spare. There, a sun tunnel takes the light that reaches a little dome on the roof and sends it down a mirrored tube that ends in a diffuser on the ceiling. In drizzle it gives a soft, even light, and the dome is small enough for rain to slide straight off.

At the back, a kitchen or utility extension usually has a flat roof. Here a rooflight for a flat roof sits on a kerb that needs a fall in it, and a roof lantern sheds the rain down its pitched glass onto the roof around it. Approved Document L defines a rooflight as a glazed unit set on a kerb or upstand. Where the lantern belongs to an extension still on the drawing board, we check the planning position with Neath Port Talbot Council.

The bathroom is the demanding one. Shower steam heads for the glass first, so a roof window over a bath or shower wants an extractor or a vent, plus glazing that keeps its inner face warm. Rain noise reduction is on the list of VELUX glazing choices, and a bedroom under the roof is the place to ask about it.

An old rooflight that has misted between its panes has usually lost the seal on its glazed unit, and we fit new units as well as replace misted rooflights. Whatever the room, a free survey comes first, after which you have a fixed written quote in hand. A 10-year workmanship guarantee, in writing, follows the finished work. Call 01792 929062 or book the survey online.