Skylight and rooflight fitting in Laleston

The village takes its name from the Norman Lageles family, who settled in the area. In Welsh it is Trelales. Round the church, which stands at the centre of the village, are several cottages and one larger house still recognisable as 16th-century in design.

Buildings of note include St David's Church, which keeps features from the 13th and 14th centuries, the Great House, built in the early 16th century, and Horeb Welsh Presbyterian Church, dated 1831. Few villages carry so many centuries in so short a walk.

The community around the village has grown fast. Its population was 8,475 at the 2001 census and 12,586 at the 2011 census, a jump of more than four thousand people in ten years. A community that grows like that is adding homes and roofs, and the roofs of newer houses are a different proposition from those of the old cottages. What follows about newer houses is general to the type, since the details to hand cover the older buildings.

From Swansea, Laleston lies 19.98 miles by road to the south-east, well inside our 30-mile limit. We also fit skylights in Pen-y-fai and take on work in Bridgend.

A village with old and new side by side gives a rooflight installer a lot to look at. A cottage may have a narrow slope with little to spare. An estate house may have a wide tiled roof and a loft ready for conversion. Both can take daylight from above, in very different ways. Where the village centre is concerned, there is a further layer of care: the buildings there are the ones people come to look at, and a rooflight on the rear slope of a house by the church needs to be chosen with the street in mind. A slim conservation-style unit, set flush, is the kind of thing that blends in. On the newer streets, the choice runs more to light, ventilation and price.

Bridgend County Borough Council decides planning questions for Laleston. On the DataMapWales layer a conservation area named Laleston lies over the village, taking in the point on the map that stands for its centre. Anyone living in or near the centre should treat that as the starting fact, because in Wales a new rooflight in the roof slope of a house inside a conservation area needs planning permission.

The mapped boundary is drawn for the area, not for each house. Your own address is what decides, and the council's conservation and design pages are the place to start. The AONB map leaves Laleston outside any designation, so the conservation area is the only mapped route to a planning application here. That narrows the question to one line on a map and one address, which a phone call to the council can answer. Houses on the newer streets, away from the old centre, should be checked just as carefully, since a line on a map can run closer than it looks.

Old buildings raise a second question. A house of 16th-century character, or a cottage beside the church, might be listed, and listed building consent is applied for through the council as local planning authority, with Cadw consulted. Alterations that affect a listed house's character need that consent whether the work is inside or out.

Away from both of those situations, the Welsh conditions for a rooflight on a house are set out in our planning guide for Wales. Our conservation rooflights page covers glass made for older roofs, which suits the cottages near the church.

Expect the paperwork to run on two tracks. Planning concerns the appearance of the change. Building control, through the borough's team or a registered building control approver, checks the structure and the energy performance. Where the work is notifiable, we handle the Building Control notification. Building control also looks at whether the roof can carry the new unit, since cutting an opening in the roof structure changes the load on the timbers around it. The energy performance of the glass is checked at the same time, against the figures already given.

Doubt about any of it is best settled before glass is ordered, since glass made to size cannot easily be sent back. Take the question to the council's planners; a Lawful Development Certificate can then record their answer in writing, ready for a future buyer to read. Keep the paperwork with the deeds, where it will be found again.

A cottage by the church makes a good case study in small spaces. The back slope is short, so one roof window set a little below the ridge gives a bedroom more height and more light than it had before. In a conservation area, a conservation rooflight is the version designed to sit flat and slim in an older roof, with a slim frame and glass that follows the roof line rather than standing proud. A new or replacement roof window should reach 1.4 W/m²K or Window Energy Rating Band B in Wales.

Estate houses offer a wider slope, and a wider slope gives more choice of position. A loft room with two roof windows side by side feels like a proper room, and an opening pair gives the stale air of a bedroom somewhere to go. Electric versions are available, and VELUX says the rain sensor on its solar and electric models closes the window by itself in rain.

At the back of both kinds of house, a flat-roofed kitchen extension is common in villages that have grown. A flat rooflight over the worktop lights the room from above. In Wales a rooflight should reach 2.2 W/m²K. A roof lantern is the taller alternative, and its height above the roof means a kitchen roof standing today would normally need a planning application before a lantern could be added, and a quick word with the council saves a wasted order. A lantern planned with a new extension is a case we take to Bridgend at survey. See flat roof rooflights and roof lanterns.

Rooms without a roof above them need another route. A landing or hall under the middle of a house can have a sun tunnel if the space above allows a straight run.

Last, think about replacing as well as adding. A misted or failing unit in an existing roof can be swapped, and the existing opening usually helps the job along. VELUX marks each window with a size code on a metal plate fixed along the sash top.