Roof Lantern Installation
Flat-roof glazing sized to the room and detailed into the kerb below it.
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Braintree district
Rooflight installation in Braintree
Former textile town, Victorian terraces. What that means for getting glass into a roof here is the whole of this page.
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In Braintree
What we install on Braintree 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 Braintree roofs
Braintree’s terraces went up for the mills, in long runs, with slate on the roof and a rear outrigger stretching down the garden. That plan is why so many enquiries from the town are about the same room. The back of the ground floor, boxed in by the outrigger on one side and a boundary wall on the other, with a single window doing all the work. This page covers what is actually on Braintree roofs, what each covering allows, and how a job is run on a street with cars parked both sides and no side gate.
- 01 What sits on top of a Braintree terrace
- 02 Welsh slate, and the re-covering that changed the flashing
- 03 The outrigger, and why the light always ends up there
- 04 Trimming an opening in a cut roof
- 05 Party wall stacks, and the space a flashing needs
- 06 Rafter depth in an eighteen eighties roof
- 07 Interwar semis on the Rayne Road and Cressing Road approaches
- 08 Estate housing off Panfield Lane and Notley Road
- 09 Flat roofs over Braintree side returns
- 10 The town centre conservation area
- 11 Scaffold, skips and a street with parking on both sides
- 12 Which units suit a Braintree slate slope
- 13 How much daylight a two up two down actually gains
- 14 Building Control in the Braintree district
- 15 How a Braintree job is priced and run
- 16 Getting a Braintree roof looked at
What sits on top of a Braintree terrace
The Victorian runs around Manor Street, South Street, Victoria Street and the Coggeshall Road end are consistent in form. A main range parallel to the street, pitched somewhere between thirty five and forty degrees, hand cut rafters at roughly four hundred millimetre centres with a purlin picking them up at mid span, and party walls carried up between each pair of houses. Behind that sits the outrigger, a two storey back addition at right angles to the main range, usually with a single storey lean-to beyond it.
The covering is where the variation lives. Original Welsh slate on a great many, plain clay tile on some of the earlier stock, and concrete interlocking tile on every terrace re-covered between the nineteen seventies and the nineteen nineties. Three coverings, three different flashing decisions, on streets that otherwise look identical.
Welsh slate, and the re-covering that changed the flashing
Slate reached Braintree by rail in the eighteen forties, which is why the town’s Victorian roofs are slate rather than the hand made clay peg tile of the villages around it. Slate is thin, flat and laid to a fine gauge, and a roof window set into it takes a low profile flashing kit dressed tight to the surface.
A re-covered roof is a different job entirely. Concrete interlocking tile has a deep roll and a coarse gauge, and it needs a kit built for that depth. Put a slate kit against an interlocking tile and the apron bridges the troughs, leaving an open channel under the flashing that fills every time the rain comes in hard from the west. Telling the two apart from the pavement takes a moment. The interlocking roof reads heavier, the verge is mortared or capped rather than slated over, and the shadow line running across the slope is much deeper.
The outrigger, and why the light always ends up there
The back addition is the reason Braintree kitchens are dark. It is a narrow two storey limb running away from the main house, and it puts a tall wall along one side of whatever sits next to it, usually a later kitchen or a side return infill. Both of those spaces are then lit from one end only.
Two answers work. Where the outrigger still carries its original lean-to at twenty to thirty degrees, a roof window in that slope drops light directly down the length of the room. Where the lean-to has already been replaced with a flat roof, or where the side return has been filled in, a flat rooflight sitting on a proper kerb is the cleaner result, because it faces the whole sky rather than one bearing of it.
Trimming an opening in a cut roof
Rafters at four hundred centres leave roughly three hundred and fifty millimetres of clear space between them, which is narrower than any roof window worth fitting. In a Braintree terrace that is not the obstacle it sounds, because a hand cut roof can be trimmed.
The method is old and settled. The rafters either side of the opening are doubled, trimmers are fixed across the head and the sill, and the cut rafter ends are hung off those trimmers. Load takes a short detour around the hole and carries on down to the wall plate. It is routine carpentry on a purlin roof, and it is the reason a terrace can take a wider unit than an estate house built ninety years later. That distinction matters, and it is the whole subject of the Great Notley page.
Party wall stacks, and the space a flashing needs
Braintree terraces carry their chimney stacks on the party walls, so on a mid terrace house there is masonry rising out of the slope at both ends of the roof. Homeowners often want a roof window tucked in beside one, because that is where the room below happens to be.
It can be done, but not tight. A flashing needs a run of covering either side to lap into and dress over, and a unit squeezed against a stack creates a narrow trough between two upstands that collects leaves and holds water through the winter. Where the opening would sit close enough to the party wall that a rafter bearing into it is affected, notice to the neighbour under the Party Wall etc. Act may be needed, and that is worth raising early rather than the week before.
Rafter depth in an eighteen eighties roof
The rafters in these houses are commonly around one hundred by fifty millimetres, sometimes shallower, sized for a slate roof and nothing else. That figure sets the internal build-up.
Modern insulation values will not fit between them without help, so there are three honest routes. Insulate between and add a layer over or under the rafters, which deepens the roof and lengthens the reveal. Drop the ceiling below the rafters and gain the depth that way, which loses head height. Or accept a warm roof build-up above the covering as part of a wider re-covering. Whichever is chosen, the rooflight lands on the outer surface, so the deeper the build-up, the longer the reveal that carries the light down into the room.
On a deep reveal, splaying the plaster outwards towards the room is the cheapest improvement available on the whole job.
Interwar semis on the Rayne Road and Cressing Road approaches
Beyond the Victorian core, Braintree grew outwards in the nineteen twenties and thirties along the main roads. The stock changes shape completely. Hipped roofs, clay plain tile or early concrete tile, pitches around forty degrees, and purlin roofs strutted off a spine wall in the middle of the house.
Hips shorten the usable run of every slope, because the roof narrows towards the top. A roof window has to sit clear of the hip rafter so the side flashing has somewhere to turn, and on a small hipped slope that can leave less room than the plan suggests. The compensation is that these roofs are generously framed and easy to trim, and the loft space under them is often already boarded and waiting.
Estate housing off Panfield Lane and Notley Road
Braintree’s post-war expansion brought a third kind of roof. Nineteen fifties and sixties housing with shallower pitches and concrete interlocking tile, then trussed rafter roofs from the mid sixties onwards, then the flat roofed garages and rear extensions that came with them.
A trussed roof changes the sizing conversation, because the webs are engineered components carrying load and cannot be cut like a rafter. The practical result is that units are usually sized to fit between trusses rather than through them. Braintree’s older streets and its later estates therefore need two quite different first conversations, which is why a look at the roof comes before any product talk. The same split runs through most of the towns listed on the areas we cover page.
Flat roofs over Braintree side returns
Filling in the side return is the standard Braintree extension, and it produces a long thin flat roof with a house wall on one side and a boundary wall on the other. Water has one direction to go and very little fall to do it with.
The kerb under a flush unit wants one hundred and fifty millimetres from the finished surface, and on a narrow return that height is not negotiable, because the roof is already collecting run-off from the main slope above it. The covering, whether single ply, felt or GRP, is dressed up the kerb sides and terminated under the unit. Get the fall sorted first and the glass second, in that order, always.
The town centre conservation area
Braintree’s historic core around the Market Place, Bank Street and the top of High Street sits within a conservation area, and the streets running off it carry the same protection. What that changes is visibility rather than possibility.
Where a slope can be seen from a public street inside the boundary, the expectation is a unit that reads as historically plausible: a slim cast frame, a central glazing bar, and a profile sitting flush with the covering rather than proud of it. On a rear slope that nobody can see, the normal range is usually available. A conservation rooflight is the answer to the first case, and permitted development rights can be withdrawn by an Article 4 direction in these areas, so the check happens before anything is ordered.
Scaffold, skips and a street with parking on both sides
Access is a real cost in Braintree, and it is better priced honestly than discovered on the day. A mid terrace with no side gate means materials and waste travel through the house, on boards, under sheets, with a route agreed before anyone starts.
Where scaffold has to stand on a pavement or in the carriageway, a licence from the highway authority is needed and it takes time to obtain. A skip on the street needs a permit and a set of lights. Many Braintree terraces have a rear service alley, and where one exists it changes the day completely, so it is one of the first things a survey looks for.
Which units suit a Braintree slate slope
On a pitched slate roof the field is roof windows, and the choice is mostly about where the room is and how high the window sits.
| Type | How it opens | Where it suits a Braintree terrace |
|---|---|---|
| Centre pivot | Rotates about the middle of the frame | Bedrooms in the main range, easy to clean from inside |
| Top hung | Swings out from the head | Loft rooms where you want to stand at the opening |
| Conservation profile | Either, with a slimmer cast frame | Front slopes visible from the street |
| Fixed flush unit | Does not open | Outrigger lean-tos lighting a stair or landing |
Products from VELUX, Fakro, Keylite and Roto all cover these forms. The selection is settled by pitch, covering and reach rather than by brand loyalty.
How much daylight a two up two down actually gains
More than the numbers suggest, because of angle. A rooflight faces the whole dome of the sky, while the kitchen window at the end of the outrigger is looking at a boundary wall three metres away and collecting a slice of what is left.
In daylight terms, a rooflight of a given area delivers something like two to three times what the same area of vertical glass gives you in an obstructed position, and a Braintree back garden is almost always an obstructed position. The working target is glazing at fifteen to twenty per cent of the floor area below. In a narrow return, push towards the upper end and put the glass towards the far end of the room, where the existing window never reached.
Building Control in the Braintree district
Fitting a new rooflight or replacing an old one is notifiable work under the Building Regulations in England. Part L covers thermal performance, Part K applies where there is a risk of falling, and Part B comes in where the opening serves as a means of escape from a loft room.
Sunspire handles the notification as part of the job, through the Braintree District Council route or an approved inspector, whichever suits the programme. It matters more than it reads on paper. An unnotified alteration tends to surface years later during a sale, when a buyer’s solicitor asks for a completion certificate that was never applied for and the chain stops moving while it is sorted out.
How a Braintree job is priced and run
Two figures, in order. A range by email once the covering, the pitch, the room and the rough size are known, then a fixed written price after somebody has been on the roof and in the loft. Fifteen years in the trade has made the gap between those two numbers small and predictable.
What moves it is access, structure and covering. A scaffold licence, a steel over a wide opening, or hand stripping and re-laying slate around the trim all show up in the figure. The costs page sets out the drivers in full. Installation runs one day for a straightforward roof window, one to two for a flat unit, and the roof is closed and watertight at the end of every working day whatever the forecast has decided to do.
Getting a Braintree roof looked at
Sunspire travels to Braintree from Chelmsford, comfortably inside the thirty mile radius the business works to, and covers the wider district including Bocking and the villages around the town.
The fastest start is two photographs and a measurement. One of the roof from the garden showing the covering and the slope, one of the ceiling inside showing where you want the light, and the rough dimensions of the room. That is normally enough for a sensible range by return. If you are earlier than that, the four questions worth answering first are what the covering is, what the pitch is, which way the slope faces, and what is holding it up.
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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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