Roof Lantern Installation
Flat-roof glazing sized to the room and detailed into the kerb below it.
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Chelmsford localities
Rooflight installation in Beaulieu Park
New-build estate, warranties and covenants. What that means for getting glass into a roof here is the whole of this page.
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In Beaulieu Park
What we install on Beaulieu Park 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 Beaulieu Park roofs
Beaulieu Park is the newest housing in Chelmsford, and rooflight work on new build has a shape of its own. The roof is sound, the insulation is current, the covering is unweathered and nothing about the structure is a mystery. What complicates the job instead is paperwork: a structural warranty that is still running, a set of covenants attached to the title, a design code the developer registered with the planning consent, and in the earlier phases a management company with an interest in the external appearance of the estate.
None of that stops a rooflight going in. It does mean the order of operations is different from a Victorian terrace in the centre of town, and getting the order wrong is expensive in time rather than in materials. This page sets out what a Beaulieu roof is made of and what has to be settled before anybody lifts a tile.
- 01 How a Beaulieu Park roof is put together
- 02 Attic trusses and the room-in-roof house types
- 03 Cutting into a rafter level insulation build-up
- 04 The structural warranty, and keeping it intact
- 05 Covenants on the title, and the estate design code
- 06 Where the management company fits in
- 07 Slate effect and plain tile coverings
- 08 Airtightness, and why a new house behaves differently
- 09 Mechanical ventilation and an opening rooflight
- 10 Roofs that already carry solar panels
- 11 North facing glass on a solar house
- 12 Overheating, and the standard the house was built to
- 13 Single storey additions on a Beaulieu plot
- 14 Matching the units the developer already fitted
- 15 Permitted development on a plot with conditions
- 16 Notification, sequencing and the first conversation
How a Beaulieu Park roof is put together
The construction is consistent across the phases: prefabricated trussed rafters at six hundred centres, a breather membrane rather than bitumen felt, counterbattens on some plots, and a covering that is either a concrete plain tile laid double lap or a thin leading edge interlocking tile made to imitate slate. Insulation is at ceiling level in the standard house types and at rafter level in the room-in-roof types. Junctions are detailed to accredited construction details for thermal bridging, and the whole envelope has been pressure tested. Every one of those elements has a consequence for a new opening, and the rafter level insulation types have the most.
Attic trusses and the room-in-roof house types
Several of the taller house types on the estate use attic trusses rather than Fink trusses. The bottom chord is a designed floor member, the webs are pushed out to the edges, and the result is a habitable third storey with a room already inside the roof. Those rooms are usually lit by a dormer to the rear and one or two roof windows in the opposite plane. Adding another is the most common request from these houses, and it is generally straightforward, because attic trusses leave a wider clear zone between webs than a Fink layout does. The constraint moves from the truss to the insulation line and the vapour control layer behind the plasterboard.
Cutting into a rafter level insulation build-up
Where insulation sits between and under the rafters, a new opening cuts through three layers that were designed as a continuous system: the insulation itself, the vapour control layer on the warm side, and the ventilation path or the breather membrane on the cold side. Reinstating them properly around the frame is the whole job. The insulation is returned tight to the liner, the vapour control layer is lapped and taped to the frame so warm moist air cannot reach a cold surface behind the plasterboard, and any ventilation gap above the insulation is kept clear past the opening. Skip the taping and you get interstitial condensation, which shows up as a wet mark on a reveal in the second winter.
On a new build the vapour control layer around the frame decides whether the reveal stays dry, and it is invisible five minutes after the plasterboard goes on.
The structural warranty, and keeping it intact
New homes here are sold with a ten year structural warranty, and in the first two years the developer also carries a defects liability for the fabric. Altering a roof during that period is allowed, but the sensible route is to tell the warranty provider and the developer in writing what is being done, when, and by whom, before it happens. A documented alteration carried out to the manufacturer’s fixing instructions and signed off by Building Control sits comfortably alongside the cover. An undocumented one becomes an argument if anything unrelated goes wrong on the same elevation later. Keeping the completion certificate, the fixing instructions and the ten year workmanship guarantee together in one file settles that conversation before it starts.
Covenants on the title, and the estate design code
Titles across the estate typically carry restrictive covenants dealing with external alterations, and the planning consent for the wider development came with a design code governing materials, roof forms and the appearance of the street scene. The two are separate instruments with separate enforcement, and either can matter. In practice a flush conservation style unit in a rear plane rarely troubles either. A row of proud domed units visible from a primary street frontage is a different conversation. Reading the covenant schedule on your own title register takes an evening and removes all the guesswork, and the transfer document usually names who has the benefit of the covenant and therefore who can consent to a variation.
Where the management company fits in
Much of the estate has a management company responsible for open space, and on some plots for elements of the built environment as well. Where a house forms part of a terrace or a coach house block with shared roof structure, the management arrangement can extend to the roof covering itself. That is a title question rather than a planning question, and the answer is in the transfer deed. It is worth resolving early on any coach house, mews or apartment building, because the person who consents may not be the person who lives there.
Slate effect and plain tile coverings
The two dominant coverings need different flashing kits. A concrete plain tile laid double lap takes a plain tile kit with soakers dressed between the courses, and because the tile is small the flashing sits close and neat. A thin leading edge interlocking tile is a single lap product with a shallow interlock and a flat face, and it takes a low profile kit closer to the slate pattern than the deep profile pattern. Using a deep profile apron on a flat faced tile leaves the apron standing proud of the covering, which looks wrong from the garden and catches wind. Identifying the exact tile model from the developer’s specification is quicker than guessing from a photograph.
Airtightness, and why a new house behaves differently
New dwellings are built and tested to a low air permeability, which means the building does not leak air the way an older house does. That is excellent for heating bills and it changes the humidity picture indoors, because moisture from cooking, showering and drying clothes has fewer accidental escape routes. Introduce a cold surface into that environment and it will attract condensation faster than the same glass in a draughty Victorian house. The answer is not less glass. It is a warm edge spacer, a decent centre pane U-value, and a ventilation strategy that is actually working, which on this estate usually means a mechanical system.
Mechanical ventilation and an opening rooflight
Where a house has continuous mechanical extract or a heat recovery system, the ventilation design assumed a particular set of openings and a particular envelope. Adding an opening rooflight does not break that, but it changes how the house is used, since people open the roof and leave the system running. In summer that is fine and the stack effect through a high level opening moves more air than any fan on the estate. In winter it undermines the heat recovery. A house with mechanical ventilation is often better served by a fixed unit with excellent glass and no opener, unless the room is a kitchen or a bathroom where purge ventilation genuinely helps.
Roofs that already carry solar panels
Photovoltaic panels are standard on many plots here, mounted on rails fixed through the covering into the rafters or trusses. A new opening in the same plane has to clear the array, the rails, the cable route down into the roof void and the fixings. The panels can be taken off and refitted by the installer who maintains them, and where the array covers most of a south facing plane that is often the practical answer, but it adds a trade and a visit. The alternative is putting the glass in the opposite plane, which on a house with panels facing south usually means a north facing rooflight. That is a better daylight result than most people expect.
North facing glass on a solar house
A north facing roof plane gives even, cool, shadowless daylight all day with almost no solar gain, which is why studios and workshops have always faced north. On a house whose south slope is committed to panels, moving the glass to the north plane costs nothing in usable light and removes the overheating problem entirely. It also allows a more generous area of glazing with neutral glass rather than a restricted area of solar control glass, so the room gets more light for less money. The specification is different: a slightly better U-value matters more when there is no gain to offset the loss.
Overheating, and the standard the house was built to
Dwellings completed in recent years were assessed against the overheating requirements of Part O, which limits solar gains and requires a means of removing excess heat. That assessment covered the house as designed. Adding a large area of horizontal glazing to a south or west facing room changes the input to that calculation, particularly in a room with a single external wall and limited cross ventilation. This is a design point, not an obstacle. It steers the specification towards solar control glass with a low g-value, a disciplined glazed area, and where the room is small and bright already, external shading or a reflective blind ordered with the unit.
Single storey additions on a Beaulieu plot
Garden rooms, orangeries and single storey rear additions are the second common enquiry. A flat roof over a new addition is the easiest place on the whole estate to get roof glazing right, because the kerb is built rather than adapted. Specify one hundred and fifty millimetres from the finished roof surface to the top of the upstand, get the falls laid properly at design stage, and the flat rooflight or lantern is being set into a roof that drains rather than one that holds water. Deciding the unit before the carpenter builds the kerb saves an adaptation later.
Matching the units the developer already fitted
On a room-in-roof house type the new opening usually sits in the same plane as one the developer put in, and the two will be looked at side by side for the next thirty years. Matching means four things, in descending order of how much they show. External frame colour and finish first, since a grey lacquered aluminium clad frame beside a white one is obvious from the garden. Then the external size, because two units of different heights in the same plane never look deliberate. Then the flashing type, so both sit at the same depth relative to the tiles. Glazing specification comes last visually and first thermally, and it is the one place where matching the original is not always right, since glass sold five years ago may be beaten by what is available now. The developer’s specification, or the sticker still on the original frame, gives the model code in a minute.
Permitted development on a plot with conditions
Rooflights on houses are ordinarily permitted development, subject to the one hundred and fifty millimetre projection limit and the rule about not exceeding the highest part of the roof. On a large planned development, permitted development rights are frequently restricted or removed by condition on the original outline or reserved matters consent, and the restriction can apply to some plots and not others. Checking the decision notice for the phase is the first action on any Beaulieu enquiry. The same check is the starting point for every address listed on the areas we cover page, but here it changes the answer more often than anywhere else in Chelmsford.
Notification, sequencing and the first conversation
The Building Control notification is handled as part of the job and the certificate lands with your other house paperwork. Sequencing is the only thing that needs your input early: title and covenant check first, planning condition check second, warranty notification third, then order the unit. Sunspire quotes a range by email once the plot type, roof plane and room are known, then a fixed written figure after a survey. Enquiries from the adjacent estates at Springfield and Boreham follow the same route, and the roof is closed and watertight at the end of every working day.
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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.
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