Skylights and rooflights in Llanelli

Llanelli is a market town and community in Carmarthenshire, and the largest town in the county. Its Welsh name means St Elli's Parish. At the 2021 census the community counted 25,366 people and the wider built-up area 42,155, which adds up to a great many roofs facing the same estuary weather.

The name took its present spelling in 1966, after a local public campaign, and the older anglicised form lives on in the pottery collection at the town museum, which also keeps an art collection and material on the town's history. Go back much further and an Iron Age hill fort called Bryn-Caerau, the hill of the forts, stood here. Evidence suggests there were five hill forts between Old Road and the Dimpath.

From Swansea it is about 12 road miles to the north-west, well inside the 30 road miles we cover. We also work in Pwll and Five Roads, both close by.

For a rooflight, the useful first question about any house is the shape of its roof. A pitched slope takes a roof window that lies in line with the slates or tiles. A flat roof over a kitchen or garage extension takes a rooflight raised on a kerb, or a lantern standing on an upstand. A dark landing with no spare roof space above it can take a sun tunnel instead. Each one behaves differently when the rain sets in, and that matters as much as the size of the room.

Older terraces of the kind built across south Wales usually have narrow rear slopes, which suits a single roof window over a back bedroom or bathroom. Semis from between the wars and after tend to leave more room on the back slope for a pair. Those are general patterns for the house types. Your own roof may differ, and the survey is where that shows up.

Planning decisions for a Llanelli address go to Carmarthenshire County Council. The town had its own borough council while the county of Dyfed existed, and the county council has looked after it since 1996.

The Welsh Government's conservation-area map shows an area named Llanelli whose boundary lies a few hundred metres from the middle of town. In Wales, adding a rooflight to a house inside a conservation area needs planning permission. Whether a particular house falls inside the line is a question for the exact address, so check it with the council or on the county's conservation areas page.

Away from conservation areas, a rooflight on a house can fall within permitted development when it meets the conditions set out in our guide to skylight planning permission in Wales. Llanelli lies outside the Gower AONB, so that designation plays no part here.

Where a house sits near the edge of a rule, guessing is a poor plan. Carmarthenshire's planning team can give a view, and a Lawful Development Certificate from the council gives formal certainty before any slates come off. Applying for one adds a little time at the start, and it leaves a document that answers the question if you sell the house later.

Some homes start from a different place. Flats and maisonettes have no householder permitted development rights at all. A council can remove those rights from houses with an Article 4 direction, and a condition on a house's original planning permission can remove them too. A listed house needs listed building consent for a rooflight that would affect its special character, under the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023, and that application also goes through the council.

Building Regulations are a separate track from planning. Fitting a new rooflight will generally need approval, because the roof usually has to be opened up and must be able to carry the extra weight. Where the work is notifiable, we handle the Building Regulations notification with local authority building control or a registered building control approver.

Start with the bathroom, because it is the room that tests a roof window hardest. Steam from a shower climbs straight to the glass. A roof window there wants an extractor that runs long enough to clear the air, and glazing that keeps its inner face from turning cold. In Wales, a new or replacement roof window should reach a U-value of 1.4 W/m²K or a Window Energy Rating of Band B under Approved Document L (Wales).

A loft bedroom asks a different question. Rain that blows in on a gusty night will find an open sash. VELUX solar and electric roof windows have an integrated rain sensor that closes the window automatically when it rains, which suits a room you leave aired while you are at work. A top-hung window opens clear of your head, and a centre-pivot turns for cleaning from inside; see our roof windows for both.

On a flat-roofed kitchen extension, the glass sits almost level with the sky. A flat roof rooflight on a kerb with a proper fall lets the rain run away, and a roof lantern sheds it down pitched glazing to the roof around it. A rooflight in Wales should reach 2.2 W/m²K.

A landing or hallway in the middle of a terrace can be the dimmest place in the house, with a loft above it and no wall to put a window in. A sun tunnel carries daylight from a small dome on the roof down a reflective tube to a diffuser in the ceiling. On a drizzly morning it gives a soft, even light at the top of the stairs, and the dome on the roof is small enough that rain runs straight off it.

Inside the mapped conservation area, where a new rooflight needs planning permission anyway, the look of the glass matters to the planning decision. A conservation rooflight is the type made with older roofs in mind, and it is the one to discuss with the council for a period house there.

Some Llanelli homes already have a rooflight that has misted between its panes. Misting between the panes usually means the sealed unit has failed, and we replace misted rooflights as well as fitting new ones.

Whichever room it is, the job starts the same way: a free survey, then a fixed written quote, and a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing once the glass is in. Call 01792 929062 or book your survey online.