Skylight and rooflight fitting in Pontarddulais

Pontarddulais is a town in the City and County of Swansea, so a house here answers to the same council as one in the city centre. The name means "bridge over the Dulais", and Dulais means "black stream", probably because the water runs through coal measures. An anglicised spelling exists as well.

An earlier form of the name belonged to a 14th-century road bridge over the River Loughor (Afon Llwchwr), which carried the main highway between Swansea and Carmarthen and has since been dismantled. The town's wider fame came in 1843, during the Rebecca Riots, when rioters crossed the bridge and attacked the toll gate.

The railway arrived in 1839, when the Llanelli Dock Company built a line to carry anthracite coal from the Amman Valley to Llanelli. In 1866 a new line joined the town to Swansea and made it an important railway junction. The A48 now passes through as St Teilo Street and Bolgoed Road. The medieval church of St Teilo, from Llandeilo Tal-y-bont, was dismantled stone by stone and rebuilt at St Fagans National History Museum in Cardiff.

The Pontarddulais and Hendy carnival leaves Hendy Industrial Estate for Coed Bach Park on the last Saturday of June. Early in 2008 a redevelopment worth £30 million was agreed for a new road beside the town, with shops and housing.

By road, the town is about 10 miles of driving from Swansea, heading north-west, which sits comfortably inside our 30-mile radius. Fitting work in Hendy, Llangennech and Pontlliw runs on the same terms.

Streets from different decades carry different roofs. The only roof we can judge is the one in front of us, which is why the survey comes before any figure.

Because Pontarddulais lies within the City and County of Swansea, its planning applications go to the same council as the city's. The designation covering Gower stops short of the town and has no bearing at all on a Pontarddulais application. The conditions that decide whether a particular house needs an application are collected in our Welsh planning guide for skylights, which is the place to start.

Lanterns need a word of their own. A roof lantern stands tall on its upstand, so a lantern added to an existing flat roof normally brings a planning application, as the planning guide explains. At survey we check the position with Swansea Council. A lantern built as part of a brand new extension is a separate question, and the council is asked about that one as well.

Householder rights stop short of flats and maisonettes, and Article 4 directions or conditions in the original permission can strip a house of them. A listed building needs listed building consent for a rooflight that affects its special character, a rule that now sits in the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023, and Cadw is the Welsh Government body to look to.

Building Regulations run alongside. A new opening in a flat roof generally needs approval, since cutting it in usually involves structural changes, and the finished roof then has to hold the unit up. We handle the Building Regulations notification where the work is notifiable, with local authority building control or a registered building control approver. You choose which of the two.

A new opening in a flat roof raises four questions for building control. Making the hole usually alters the structure, the roof must carry what goes in it, the glass must meet the energy standard, and a rooflight close to a boundary has to be considered for its fire performance. A survey that takes in the room, the joists and the position of the neighbouring property is how those four get answered before a quote is written.

The energy standard is tied to the type of unit. Approved Document L (Wales) says a new or replacement rooflight in an existing home should reach 2.2 W/m²K. In its wording a rooflight is a glazed unit set out of plane with the roof on a kerb or upstand, and lanterns go unmentioned, so the figure for one is settled with the council.

A flat glass rooflight is the plainest answer to a dark extension. It sits on a kerb, it can be fixed or opening, and the flat glass lets water leave as long as the roof beneath it falls the right way. Our page on flat roof rooflights covers the options in full, and the guide to water sitting on a flat rooflight explains what a pool on the glass is telling you.

A roof lantern puts pitched glass over a flat roof, and it leaves a visible shape on the outside of the house, so it deserves a look from the garden as well as from the kitchen.

Walk-on glass belongs to a different job. A terrace over a room below can take a walk-on rooflight; grip when wet is the question to ask first. The guide to walk-on glass in the wet goes through it.

On the older parts of a house the roof may carry slates or tiles at an ordinary pitch. There the roof window is the natural fit, and the landing or loft bedroom is the room it suits best.

Kitchens deserve a second thought about ventilation. Approved Document F (Wales) asks that a replacement window leaves a home's ventilation no worse than it found it, and it sets out the vent sizes that show this for a kitchen or a bathroom.

Approved Document N (Wales) covers glazing safety, and it marks out the zones near the floor in walls, doors and partitions where glass should break safely or be protected.

Some flat roofs already carry a rooflight whose panes have clouded over, and the choice then is between new glass in the existing frame and a whole new unit. The energy rules treat the two differently. Fitting new glass into the frame you already have falls outside the energy rules, whereas replacing the whole unit counts as building work. Our guide to sealed unit or whole rooflight sets out how that choice is made.

Wind plays a part on any roof. A flashing kit overlaps the covering on every side of a roof window so that gusts have no gap to blow through.

Whichever form your roof takes, a free survey comes first. After it you get a fixed written quote, and the work is covered by a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing. Phone 01792 929062, send a message on WhatsApp, or book from the form.