Skylights and rooflights in Kidwelly

Kidwelly, Cydweli in Welsh, is a town and community in Carmarthenshire. The 2021 census counted 3,689 residents in the community. The first castle on the site was a motte and bailey of earth and timber. In the 13th century it was rebuilt in stone, as part of Edward I's "ring of steel" for tightening his grip on Wales, and it was designed to follow the strategic thinking of the day.

Earlier history is recorded in the neighbouring forest of Kingswood. A field there, Maes Gwenllian, is known as the site of a battle in 1136, when Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd, wife of Gruffydd ap Rhys, led her husband's troops against a Norman army while he was away.

Day to day, the town is tied to the rest of the county by road and rail. The A484 connects Kidwelly with Llanelli and Carmarthen, and the station sits on the West Wales Line. Public footpaths and bridleways run through the town and Mynydd-y-Garreg, among them Glan yr Afon behind the Wesleyan Chapel on the Bridge and Summer Way off Water Street. The town council's offices adjoin the Princess Gwenllian Community Centre on Hillfield Villas.

Kidwelly stands 19.9 miles by road from Swansea in a north-westerly line, inside the ring we work in. Villages close by on our list are Trimsaran, Ferryside and Pembrey.

An old town gathers roofs of every period, and a stone castle gives no clue about what sits under the slates of a house a few streets away. Houses of different ages carry different roofs, and a terrace built long ago can have a narrow back slope where a bungalow has a broad one. A narrow slope may leave room for one roof window, and a broad one may take two side by side, which changes how much daylight reaches the room beneath. Walking round the outside of a house with the owner shows most of that in a few minutes. Those are general patterns, and they explain why the first conversation about a rooflight in Kidwelly is about the roof you have, however grand the history around it.

Anything that needs permission in Kidwelly goes to Carmarthenshire County Council. The planners there deal with householder applications, listed building consent and the conservation area, and the same council runs a building control team that can check the work once it is built.

The DataMapWales layer includes a conservation area named Kidwelly, and it covers the reference point we use for the town. In Wales, putting a rooflight into the roof slope of a house inside a conservation area needs planning permission, so a house in or near the centre starts from that position. The map is a guide to the area, and your own address is the question. Carmarthenshire publishes a page on its conservation areas that points the way. Kidwelly sits outside any mapped AONB, so that second route to a planning application is closed.

Listed buildings are a separate matter. A rooflight on a listed house can need listed building consent, which you apply for through the council as local planning authority, with Cadw consulted. Cadw publishes its records of listed buildings in Cof Cymru, where you can look up an address before you plan anything.

Houses outside both of those protections can still meet limits, set out in the Welsh planning guide for rooflights. Our conservation rooflights page covers the glass made for older roofs.

A council can also take away permitted development rights from houses in an area by an Article 4 direction, and a house can come with a condition on its original planning permission that does the same job. A phone call to the planning team costs little before you order glass, and if you want the council's answer in writing, a Lawful Development Certificate provides it.

Building control is the third track. In Wales you can use the council's own building control team or a registered building control approver, and whichever you pick looks at the structure, the weight on it and the energy performance of the glass. We deal with the notification where one is due.

Roofs sort the choices out before anything else does. Over a sloping roof the product is a roof window set into the slope and lying flush with the roof covering. Over a flat roof the choice widens to a rooflight on a kerb, a dome or a lantern. For a roof window in Wales, a new or replacement unit should reach 1.4 W/m²K or a Window Energy Rating of Band B, and a rooflight should reach 2.2 W/m²K.

Lanterns follow a rule of their own. For its lantern, Brett Martin sets the minimum height of the builder's upstand at 150 mm and would like it built level. Lanterns as a rule sit well proud of the roof, so a lantern added to a flat roof you already have normally needs a planning application. Where the lantern comes with a brand-new extension, we settle the position with Carmarthenshire at survey. More at roof lanterns.

A loft that has become a bedroom is a good place for a pair of roof windows, set side by side in the slope. Rain in a gust will find an open sash, and an electric unit with a rain-sensing controller shuts itself when the weather turns, as VELUX describes its solar and electric range. The roof windows page shows the options.

Bungalows and flat-roofed kitchens suit a different answer. A flat roof rooflight brings daylight to a kitchen with no wall left for a window, and the glass can be chosen for the room beneath it.

A bathroom roof window is the hardest case, since steam climbs straight to it. A fan that keeps running after the shower is off and glazing with a warmer inner pane take most of the strain, and a vent or an opening sash deals with the rest.