Short answer
A roof lantern can be heard in the rain, and the glazing is the part you get to choose. How much reaches the room also depends on what the room is used for and how it is furnished. Manufacturers such as VELUX list rain noise reduction among their glazing options, so we settle the specification at the free survey and give you a fixed written quote.
Free survey / fixed written quote / Building Control notification handled / 10-year workmanship guarantee
Why rain is heard under glass
Rain lands on the outer pane and the frame, and the room below hears whatever gets through. That is true of any glazed roof. A lantern stands up from a flat roof as a glass box, so a wide area of glazing faces the sky. Showers that arrive on the wind can strike the sides of the lantern as well as the top.
What you hear also depends on the room. A study with a ceiling and soft furnishings treats a shower very differently from a kitchen-diner with a hard floor, bare walls and a high open void. The lantern is one link in that chain, and the room is the other. A rug, a sofa or a run of curtains in a nearby bay can soften what a bare tiled floor would pass straight on.
Glazing choices that bear on it
Glass is the part of the specification that can be changed. VELUX sells its flat glass and curved glass rooflights in either double or triple glazing, citing energy efficiency and sound reduction among the reasons. Across its roof windows it also lists a laminated inner pane and a rain noise reduction option. Which of those you can have turns on the particular window and glazing variant. VELUX describes the laminated inner pane as keeping glass out of the room if a pane is accidentally broken.
Those are VELUX product lines, and a lantern is a different build with its own frame and glass. The survey is where we work out which options exist for the lantern you want, and which of them speak to the noise.
| Glazing option | What the maker says | Listed for |
|---|---|---|
| Double or triple | Energy efficiency and sound reduction | Flat and curved glass rooflights |
| Laminated inner pane | Keeps glass out of the room if broken | Roof windows |
| Rain noise reduction | A glazing option, by variant | Roof windows |
The room under the lantern
Tell us what the room is for. A lantern over a dining table is sat under for hours, and a lantern over a hallway is walked beneath in a few seconds. A reading corner, a home office and a kitchen island make different demands of the glazing overhead. The glazing can be chosen with whichever of those rooms you have in mind. At the survey, say which room the lantern will cover, how long you spend in it and how much quiet matters there.
Where the lantern sits on the plan matters as well, because it decides who sits below the glass. One over the middle of an open room is above everyone in it, while a smaller one over a utility corner may be above nobody for much of the day. Our guide to roof lantern sizes explains how the room sets the size, and the same thinking tells us where sound could become a nuisance.
Noise beside the other wet-day behaviours
Rain noise is one of four things a lantern does when the weather turns. The others are how water runs off the glass and the upstand, whether condensation forms on the inside, and whether the panes can be kept clean for the view. A lantern that is quiet but holds a puddle at its base has only solved part of the problem, so the survey looks at all four together. The roof lanterns page covers the run-off and condensation side of that list.
For the other side of the ledger, our look at the disadvantages of roof lanterns sets noise alongside heat, cost and the paperwork.
Pricing a quieter lantern
Glazing choices change the cost of a lantern along with the size, the frame and the roof underneath. Our page on how much a roof lantern costs sets out what moves the figure. To book the survey, ring 01792 929062 or book it online. The finished lantern carries a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing, and the full range sits on the roof lanterns page.