Roof Lantern Installation
Flat-roof glazing sized to the room and detailed into the kerb below it.
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London fringe
Rooflight installation in Romford
Victorian terraces and postwar estates. What that means for getting glass into a roof here is the whole of this page.
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In Romford
What we install on Romford roofs
Flat Roof Rooflight Installation
Flush and kerb-mounted units into single-ply, felt and GRP flat roofs.
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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
16 things worth knowing about Romford roofs
Romford is the point where the Essex work becomes London work. The town is in the London Borough of Havering, so the planning regime, the local policy and the Building Control route are all London ones, and the housing is a straight run through three distinct periods: Victorian and Edwardian terraces around the centre, a garden suburb built for an exhibition, and a very large post-war estate on the northern edge.
Each of those wants a different job. Sunspire travels down from Chelmsford, around eighteen miles by road, and Romford sits at the south western reach of the area covered. What follows is what the survey actually finds, starting with the roof shape that catches most people out.
- 01 A London borough, and what changes because of it
- 02 Butterfly roofs behind a parapet on the older terraces
- 03 The central valley gutter, and where glass must not sit
- 04 London stock brick, Welsh slate and what comes off first
- 05 Gidea Park, and the houses built for an exhibition
- 06 What the Gidea Park designation asks of a roof
- 07 Harold Hill, and a postwar estate built in one programme
- 08 Pitch measured rather than assumed on a Harold Hill roof
- 09 Freeholders, leases and a roof you share
- 10 Loft conversions on a Romford terrace, and the wall at the boundary
- 11 Getting material to a roof from a Romford street
- 12 Collier Row, Gidea Park and the interwar ribbon
- 13 Living beside the Great Eastern main line
- 14 Rear extensions on a terraced plot, and the lantern that fits
- 15 Which way a Romford terrace roof faces
- 16 Notification in Havering, and how a Romford job is priced
A London borough, and what changes because of it
Havering is the planning authority and its policies sit under the London Plan, which is a layer of policy that no Essex district has. For a rooflight the practical differences are narrow but real: local validation requirements for an application, directions that remove permitted development rights in specific areas, and a Building Control route into a London borough rather than an Essex district.
Permitted development itself works the same way it does everywhere in England. The unit must not project more than one hundred and fifty millimetres beyond the plane of the existing roof slope, and it must not stand higher than the highest part of the roof. Those two conditions do a lot of work, and they are the reason a flush unit is the default answer on a front slope.
Butterfly roofs behind a parapet on the older terraces
The oldest terraces around the town centre do not have the simple double pitch that owners picture. Behind the parapet at the front there are two slopes falling inwards towards each other, with a valley gutter running down the middle from front to back. From the street the building looks flat topped. From above it is a V.
This shape is common across inner London and it reaches out into Romford on the earlier stock. It changes the whole conversation, because the usable roof planes are short, they face each other rather than the sky, and they discharge into one gutter that the entire roof depends on. A rooflight in one of these slopes is entirely possible. It has to be positioned around the drainage rather than in the middle of the tidiest looking area.
The central valley gutter, and where glass must not sit
That gutter is usually lead or a lined trough, it is often no wider than the boards beneath it, and it carries every litre that lands on both slopes.
A flashing needs clearance to be dressed properly on all four sides, so a unit cannot be pushed down towards the gutter to gain a few hundred millimetres of glass. Nor can it sit tight against the party line, where the roof structure is frequently shared with next door. The honest sequence on this stock is to establish where the water goes first, then set out the opening in what is left, and accept the size that gives. Where the answer is small, two openings in the two slopes usually beats one compromised one.
London stock brick, Welsh slate and what comes off first
The covering on the Victorian streets is Welsh slate, laid at pitches in the low thirties over rafters and purlins, on walls of yellow London stock brick that has weathered to a dark grey.
Slate is nailed, not hung, and it is brittle. It comes off in whole courses with a ripper rather than being levered out singly, and it goes back on new copper nails with matching salvage held ready before the roof is opened, because breakage during handling is normal. The flashing for slate is a low profile kit dressed tight. The one thing that changes the job is a roof that was re-covered in concrete tile at some point in the nineteen seventies, which is common here, because the profile is deeper and the kit is different.
Gidea Park, and the houses built for an exhibition
Gidea Park is part of Romford and it is unlike anything else in the borough. It was laid out as a garden suburb in the early twentieth century, and a competition and exhibition in 1911 brought in a large number of architects who each built a house on a plot. The result is a run of individually designed Arts and Crafts houses, several of them listed, along Reed Pond Walk and the roads around it.
The roofs match the ambition. Steep pitches, hips meeting gables, catslides down over rear additions, dormers built into the slope, and coverings ranging from handmade clay plain tile to slate to hand made pantile. Nothing here is standard and nothing is assumed. The pitch is measured, the covering is identified on the roof, and the structure is looked at from inside before any size is discussed.
What the Gidea Park designation asks of a roof
The exhibition estate and the streets around it are designated, and on the listed houses the roof is part of what is protected rather than a surface on top of it.
Listed building consent runs alongside planning permission and covers alterations affecting character. Where consent is given on a visible slope it is usually for a flush conservation pattern unit in a slim dark cast frame with a central glazing bar, set into the plane of the covering. Those are made to a stated size, so the order follows the decision notice. On the unlisted houses within the conservation area the test is visibility, and a rear slope hidden behind a deep plot is a far easier proposition than a road facing one.
Harold Hill, and a postwar estate built in one programme
Harold Hill was built out from the late nineteen forties as one very large housing programme, and that shows on the roofs. House types repeat along a road, the construction is consistent, and what is true of one address is usually true of the next four.
The roofs are shallower than the Victorian stock, generally in concrete interlocking tile, on cut timber in the earliest phases and on trussed rafters in the later ones. There are also flat roofed elements: link blocks between pairs, single storey projections, and blocks of maisonettes. Knowing which phase a house belongs to narrows the survey considerably, and it is usually visible from the street in the window pattern and the roof line.
Pitch measured rather than assumed on a Harold Hill roof
The single most useful measurement on a post-war estate roof is the actual pitch, taken with a gauge rather than judged from the pavement.
Roof windows generally want fifteen degrees as a minimum. Some units are rated from ten with a specific underlay detail beneath them, and below that the manufacturer will not stand behind the weathering, which is a statement about the building rather than a matter of opinion. Plenty of shallow estate roofs come back at twelve or thirteen degrees when they were assumed to be twenty. Where that happens the honest answer is usually a flat roof unit on a kerb over a rear addition, or a sun tunnel where the room below has no roofline of its own.
Loft conversions on a Romford terrace, and the wall at the boundary
Converting the roof space is the standard way of adding a bedroom on a terraced plot, and it is where a great deal of the glass in this town goes.
Two things govern it. Head height, set by the collar tying the rafters partway up, which decides whether the conversion works at all. And the party wall, because the roof structure at the boundary is frequently shared and work affecting it engages the Party Wall etc. Act whether or not anything crosses the line. Serving notice is straightforward and takes time, so it happens early. Once the loft is a habitable room the Regulations engage differently, and any window relied on for escape has to give a defined clear opening with its bottom edge in a set height range above the floor.
Getting material to a roof from a Romford street
Terraced streets around the centre have parking on both sides, no side access to the rear, and a front door that opens onto a narrow footway.
That combination decides the working method. Material goes up externally, which means a scaffold on the highway with a licence from the borough, suspension of parking bays, and a working day arranged around the street rather than around the roof. Where a rear garden is reachable through an alley the position improves, but a large sealed unit will not turn the corner in a standard alley, so the measurement that matters is the diagonal rather than the width. All of this is settled at survey, because it moves a price more than the glass does.
Collier Row, Gidea Park and the interwar ribbon
Between the Victorian core and the post-war estates there is a wide band of nineteen twenties and thirties housing, along the roads out towards Collier Row and around the station at Gidea Park.
These are hipped roofs on cut timber, purlins carried on struts landing on an internal load bearing wall, covered in clay plain tile originally and in concrete interlocking tile where a roof has been re-covered since. They trim well and there is usually room to work. The main constraint is the hip itself, which shortens the available slope at each end and pushes the sensible position for a unit towards the middle of the plane, where the purlin usually is.
Living beside the Great Eastern main line
The main line runs straight through Romford and a lot of housing sits close to it, along with the arterial roads that cross the borough.
Glass in a roof is the thinnest part of the envelope and it faces upwards, so it hears more than a wall does. Two order time choices make a measurable difference. A laminated outer pane with an acoustic interlayer damps vibration that a plain pane transmits straight through, and panes of differing thickness in the same unit break up the resonance rather than reinforcing it. Neither can be added afterwards, which is why the question belongs in the specification conversation and not at handover.
Rear extensions on a terraced plot, and the lantern that fits
The back addition on a Romford terrace is narrow, and that narrowness decides which product is right more than any preference does.
A lantern is a raised pitched structure and it reads as architecture from inside, with the glazing bars converging on a ridge so the ceiling gains height and direction. It wants a room deep enough to carry it. On a two and a half metre wide side return it can feel like the roof is pressing down, and a flush unit that disappears into the ceiling line is the better answer. On a full width rear extension across a terraced plot, four metres or more, the lantern is usually right.
Which way a Romford terrace roof faces
The Victorian streets run in long parallel lines, so an entire road shares one orientation and the house next door has exactly the problem you have.
A north facing plane gives steady, cool light all day with almost no heat gain and will take a generous area of neutral glass. A south or west facing plane collects the afternoon sun at a high angle. The U-value measures heat loss and lower is better. The g-value measures the fraction of solar energy that passes through, and lower means less gain and slightly less light. On a small terraced room under a large area of south facing glass, solar control is not an upgrade, it is what makes the room usable in July.
Notification in Havering, and how a Romford job is priced
Fitting a new rooflight or replacing an existing one is notifiable work under the Building Regulations. It engages Part L for thermal performance, Part K where there is a risk of falling, and Part B where a room in the roof depends on the opening for escape. Sunspire handles the notification as part of the job, into Havering rather than into an Essex district.
Pricing runs in two stages, a range by email once the basics are known and a fixed written figure after a survey. On a Romford address the survey is doing more work than usual, because access, the party wall position and the drainage on a butterfly roof all move the number. A photograph of the roof from outside, one of the ceiling from inside and a rough room size is enough for the first figure, and the ground on what drives a price is set out separately.
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