Roof Lantern Installation
Flat-roof glazing sized to the room and detailed into the kerb below it.
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Blackwater
Rooflight installation in Burnham-on-Crouch
Riverside town, weatherboard. What that means for getting glass into a roof here is the whole of this page.
We travel to Burnham-on-Crouch
10-year guarantee
Burnham-on-CrouchTown covered
BlackwaterWithin
30Mile radius by road
10Year workmanship guarantee
In Burnham-on-Crouch
What we install on Burnham-on-Crouch roofs
Flat Roof Rooflight Installation
Flush and kerb-mounted units into single-ply, felt and GRP flat roofs.
View this service →Roof Window Installation
Roof windows trimmed into slate, clay and concrete tile without proud flashing.
View this service →VELUX Window Installation
We install VELUX alongside Fakro, Keylite and Roto roof windows.
View this service →Electric and Opening Rooflights
Actuated opening units, rain sensors and controls, wired and commissioned.
View this service →Energy Efficient Rooflights
Specified on U-value and g-value, not on the brochure photograph.
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The local detail
15 things worth knowing about Burnham-on-Crouch roofs
Burnham-on-Crouch is laid out with its back to the water. The High Street runs parallel to the river a street inland, the plots run down towards the Quay, and the buildings that face the Crouch directly are the yacht clubs, the boatyards and a thin line of houses along the front. Everything else looks at the street and hides its roof behind a frontage.
That layout decides most rooflight work in the town. The visible elevation is protected and formal, the rear slope is where the glass usually goes, and the wind and salt coming up the estuary set the specification for anything on the waterfront. This page works through the building types Burnham actually contains and the details each of them needs. Sunspire travels down to Burnham from Chelmsford, as it does across the rest of the areas we cover map, with a survey before any figure is fixed.
- 01 A town that faces the street and hides its roof
- 02 Boarded elevations, and where an upstand meets them
- 03 Consent along the Burnham High Street
- 04 Parapets, secret gutters and the town house roof
- 05 Opening a slate slope and closing it again
- 06 Flat roofed buildings on the waterfront
- 07 Fetch across the Crouch, and the wind that arrives with it
- 08 Holding a lantern down as well as up
- 09 Bungalows towards the station and Southminster Road
- 10 Reach, poles and the case for an electric opener
- 11 Houses that stand empty midweek, and the condensation that follows
- 12 Lighting the stair in a three storey town house
- 13 Rear extensions on a narrow riverside plot
- 14 Notification, and the district it goes to
- 15 What a Burnham price is built on
A town that faces the street and hides its roof
The plots along the High Street are long and narrow, running back from the frontage towards the river or away from it. The main range sits tight to the pavement, a rear addition runs back at one or two storeys, and behind that there is usually a yard.
What that gives you is two quite different roofs on the same house. The front slope faces a conservation area street and is looked at by everybody. The rear slope, and the flat or shallow roof over the back addition, are visible to nobody but the neighbours. Nearly every successful Burnham installation puts the glass on the second of those. The daylight lands in the same room either way, and the consent conversation is dramatically shorter.
Boarded elevations, and where an upstand meets them
Weatherboard is the local wall finish, painted white or black depending on the age and the building, and it appears on cottages, on the boatyard buildings and on rear additions all over the town.
Boarding matters at an abutment. Where a flat roof runs up against a boarded wall, the covering has to rise up that face and be terminated properly, and a board is not masonry: there is no joint to chase into. The correct detail is a timber batten fixed through the boarding into the studwork behind, with the membrane dressed over it and a cover flashing above, so that water shedding down the boards is thrown clear of the termination rather than running behind it. Getting that wrong is the most common source of a wet mark in a Burnham back addition.
Consent along the Burnham High Street
The High Street and the streets running off it sit within a conservation area, and the frontages include a substantial number of listed buildings. Two separate permissions can be in play. Planning control over the appearance, and listed building consent where the fabric itself is protected.
Permitted development rights for roof alterations are commonly withdrawn inside a conservation area by an Article 4 direction. Where consent is needed, the design that gets granted is a flush unit with a slim dark frame and a central glazing bar, which is exactly what a conservation rooflight is manufactured to deliver. On a listed building it is the historic roof structure rather than the appearance that tends to be the sensitive part, and a unit sized to drop between existing rafters with nothing principal cut is the proposal an officer can approve.
On a listed Burnham frontage the least invasive design is usually the only one that gets consent.
Parapets, secret gutters and the town house roof
The Georgian and early Victorian houses along Newland-facing streets and the High Street frequently carry a roof you cannot see from the pavement: a parapet wall along the front, a gutter behind it, and a shallow or double pitched roof set back behind that.
A concealed roof of that kind is an opportunity and a hazard together. It is invisible, so the planning conversation is easier. It also drains to a single lined gutter with limited fall and often one small outlet, which means anything placed on the roof surface has to be positioned with the flow of water understood first. A kerb standing between the slope and the outlet changes where water goes across the whole roof. That is established at survey, with the gutter inspected rather than assumed.
Opening a slate slope and closing it again
Natural slate covers a large share of the Victorian stock in the town, laid at pitches from the mid thirties upwards on hand cut rafters with a purlin at mid span.
Slate is thin, flat and brittle, and it behaves differently from tile at every stage. Slates are lifted by drawing the nails rather than levering, sound ones go back down, and the flashing kit is the low profile type dressed tight to the surface. A kit meant for a tiled roof stands proud on slate, which is obvious from the street and, more to the point, holds water at the head of the unit where the covering is trying to shed it. Reclaimed slate to match the existing size and gauge is worth sourcing rather than accepting a modern substitute alongside it.
Flat roofed buildings on the waterfront
The riverfront carries a run of twentieth century buildings with flat roofs and rendered walls, including some genuinely distinguished modern architecture among the club buildings. Flat roofs also appear on the newer housing along the front and on the boatyard offices and workshops.
A flat rooflight here sits on a kerb built off the roof structure, with the covering dressed up the sides of that kerb and terminated under the unit. On single ply, felt or GRP there is no flashing kit at all, so the kerb has to be built first, square and level, with the deck falling away from it in the right direction. On an architecturally sensitive building, the visual decision is whether the unit reads as flush and quiet or as a raised object, and on a flat roofed modern building it is nearly always the former.
Fetch across the Crouch, and the wind that arrives with it
Wind gathers energy over distance, and the Crouch gives it a long clear run with saltings and open water on both banks. A roof on the waterfront is sitting in a genuinely exposed position, not a nominally exposed one.
Wind acting on a roof produces suction rather than pressure, and the suction is highest at the eaves, the verges and the corners of a roof plane. Anything standing proud of the surface picks up that load. So a lantern kerb, a flat rooflight upstand and the perimeter trims around a roof window all want mechanical fixing back to structure at tighter centres than the standard published detail, rather than relying on adhesive at the perimeter. Flashing laps go beyond the minimum as well, since driven rain travels upwards under a lap that would shed a vertical downpour.
Holding a lantern down as well as up
A roof lantern is the product most affected by exposure, because it is the one standing highest above the roof plane and presenting the largest surface to the wind.
The load path has to be continuous. The lantern frame is fixed to the kerb, the kerb is fixed to the timber or steel forming the opening, and the opening structure is tied into the roof itself. Every one of those connections needs to be a designed mechanical fixing on an exposed Burnham plot. In practice that means bolts or structural screws at specified centres rather than nails, and it means the kerb is built to carry uplift rather than simply to hold the unit at the right height. It costs very little at build stage and cannot be introduced afterwards without lifting the unit.
Bungalows towards the station and Southminster Road
Away from the water the town is largely single storey and postwar. Bungalows and chalet bungalows on generous plots, hipped or gabled, with concrete interlocking tiles and shallow to moderate pitches.
Concrete interlocking tile has a deep profile and it takes a flashing kit designed for that depth. A kit intended for a flat plain tile leaves the apron bridging the troughs with a void underneath it, which looks acceptable from the ground and is not. The advantage of this part of town is the plot: side access, room for a scaffold or a tower at the rear, and a skip on the driveway rather than on the road. That difference shows up in the price against an equivalent job on the High Street.
| Part of town | Typical roof | What governs the job |
|---|---|---|
| High Street frontages | Slate or plain tile, sometimes behind a parapet | Consent, access through the building |
| Rear additions off the High Street | Felt, GRP or single ply flat | Kerb height, abutment to a boarded wall |
| The Quay and waterfront | Flat roofs, rendered walls | Wind uplift, salt, mechanical fixing |
| Station and Southminster Road | Concrete interlocking tile, hipped | Pitch, deep profile kit, easy access |
Reach, poles and the case for an electric opener
A large share of Burnham housing is single storey or has rooms in the roof, and that puts an opening rooflight within about two and a half metres of the floor in some rooms and well beyond reach in others.
Anything above roughly two and a half metres is awkward on a winding pole and irritating within a month, and in a room with a high ceiling nobody opens the window at all after the first winter. An electric rooflight answers that, and the important point is timing. Running a cable to the opening is trivial at first fix and disruptive afterwards, so the decision is worth making early even if the actuator itself is fitted later. Solar powered units avoid the cable entirely where a supply is genuinely awkward.
Houses that stand empty midweek, and the condensation that follows
Burnham has a sailing population, and a proportion of the housing near the water is used at weekends rather than lived in continuously. A house that is unheated from Monday to Friday behaves quite differently from one that is occupied.
Internal surfaces get cold and stay cold, and when the heating goes on and people arrive with kettles, showers and wet sailing kit, moisture in the air meets those cold surfaces and condenses. A rooflight is often the first place it shows, because glass is the coldest surface in the room. Two things help materially: a warm edge spacer and a good glazing specification, which raises the inner pane temperature, and background ventilation that runs whether anybody is there or not. Condensation between the panes is a different matter entirely, and that unit wants replacing.
Lighting the stair in a three storey town house
The taller houses in the town centre have a stair core running up the middle of a narrow plan, with no external wall available to it and a landing at the top that is dark all day.
A rooflight over the stairwell is the classic answer and it is more effective than the area suggests, because light falls the full height of the stair and reaches two floors rather than one. Where the roof above the stair is not directly accessible, a sun tunnel carries daylight down through the void from a small opening in the covering. Part K is the regulation to be aware of here, since an opening over a stairwell involves a risk of falling and the glazing specification has to answer that.
Rear extensions on a narrow riverside plot
Extensions in Burnham go backwards, because the plots allow it and the frontage does not. A single storey rear extension with a flat or shallow roof is the standard project, and rooflights are what make the resulting deep plan work.
The detail that decides the outcome is the abutment against the main house. The covering and the upstand both have to rise up that rear wall and terminate in a properly formed flashing, and the kerb has to hold its one hundred and fifty millimetres above the finished surface at the wall end as well as at the eaves end. A kerb that is generous at the low side and short where it meets the house is the commonest fault in this kind of roof, and it fails at exactly the point where water is deepest.
Notification, and the district it goes to
Burnham sits within the Maldon district for Building Control purposes. New rooflights and replacements into existing openings are both notifiable work in England, whichever route the notification takes.
Part L governs thermal performance, Part K applies where there is a risk of falling through or from the opening, and Part B covers escape provision from a habitable room in a roof. Sunspire handles the notification as part of the job, through the local authority or an approved inspector as the programme suits. It is worth having. An unnotified alteration tends to surface during a sale, when a buyer’s solicitor asks for a completion certificate that nobody obtained at the time.
What a Burnham price is built on
The quote comes in two stages. A range by email once the building type, the roof and the rough size are known, then a fixed written figure after the survey, naming the manufacturer, model, external size, glazing specification with its U-value and frame finish, with the workmanship carrying a ten year guarantee.
Three things move a Burnham number. Consent, since a listed frontage changes the product before it changes the price. Exposure, since a waterfront plot carries a heavier fixing and coating specification. And access, because a High Street plot may mean everything travels through the building while a bungalow off Southminster Road has a driveway. Send a photograph of the roof from outside, one of the ceiling from within, and a note of whether the house is listed. Typical ranges are on the costs page and the background reading is in the guides.
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Tell us about your roof
We start with the building, the covering and the slope. Then we tell you what will suit it, and what it will cost, as a fixed written number.
- Surveyed before it is priced
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
- Building Control notification handled
- New installations and replacements