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 Great Notley
Planned modern village, trussed roofs. What that means for getting glass into a roof here is the whole of this page.
We travel to Great Notley
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Great NotleyTown covered
Braintree districtWithin
30Mile radius by road
10Year workmanship guarantee
In Great Notley
What we install on Great Notley 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 Great Notley roofs
Great Notley is the one place in the district where the roof structure is known before anybody arrives. The garden village went up from the nineteen nineties onwards on farmland south west of Braintree, and it was built the way volume housing has been built since the mid sixties: prefabricated trussed rafters, delivered flat, craned into place and fixed at six hundred centres. That single fact settles more about a rooflight here than covering, pitch or orientation put together. This page covers what those roofs allow, what they refuse, and how to get a decent area of glass into a house that was never designed to have one.
- 01 What a nineteen nineties truss roof is actually made of
- 02 Where the webs land, and the opening that leaves
- 03 Two units instead of one, and why it usually looks better
- 04 Clipped tiles, dry verges and stripping back an estate roof
- 05 Bitumen underlay on the first phases, and the lap at an opening
- 06 Converting a Great Notley loft, and the structure that comes first
- 07 Conservatories, and the solid roofs that replaced them
- 08 Single storey rear extensions on a small plot
- 09 Roofs with no stack, and the unbroken slope that leaves
- 10 Cold roof voids, quilt at ceiling level and the ventilation path
- 11 Exposure across the country park and the open ground west
- 12 Planning conditions on the later phases
- 13 Glass for a small room under a large area of sky
- 14 Thirty years on, and the units from the first phases
- 15 Notifying the work on a Great Notley house
- 16 Starting a Great Notley enquiry
What a nineteen nineties truss roof is actually made of
A fink truss is a triangle of softwood, typically thirty five or forty seven millimetres thick, with internal webs forming a W between the rafters and the ceiling tie. The joints are not cut and pegged. They are pressed steel nail plates punched into both faces of the timber under a press, which is why they sit flush and why nothing can be unpicked and reassembled.
The whole roof works as a series of identical frames, braced to each other with diagonal and longitudinal bracing and strapped down to the wall plate. Every member is sized for the job it does and nothing is spare. Cutting a web on a Great Notley roof is not the same operation as cutting a rafter in a Victorian terrace, which is the subject of the Braintree page, and the two towns need quite different first conversations.
Where the webs land, and the opening that leaves
Trusses at six hundred millimetre centres leave roughly five hundred and fifty millimetres of clear space between them once the timber thickness is taken off. That is the working width for a single unit unless an engineer designs a trimming solution, and it corresponds neatly to the narrower sizes in the standard ranges.
Height is the more interesting number. The webs of a fink truss cross the slope diagonally, so the clear run along a rafter between one web junction and the next is limited too. A survey measures both dimensions in the actual roof rather than working from the house type, because the same badge of house on the same street can carry a different truss where a hip or a gable end changed the span.
The width available in a trussed roof is set by the timber that is already there, not by the size you would like.
Two units instead of one, and why it usually looks better
The honest answer to somebody who wanted one wide window is very often two narrower ones in adjacent bays, and it is worth saying that this is rarely a compromise in the visual sense.
Two units separated by the width of a truss deliver the same glass area, spread the light more evenly across the ceiling than a single opening does, and give a rhythm on the slope that matches the rhythm of the estate around it. Structurally the roof is untouched: no engineer, no calculation, no alteration to a warranty. From inside, the pier of ceiling between the two reveals is the only difference and a splayed reveal on both sides softens it considerably.
Clipped tiles, dry verges and stripping back an estate roof
The coverings across Great Notley are concrete interlocking tile in the main, with plain tile and slate effect on the house types that wanted a finer texture. What sets them apart from older Essex roofs is the fixing regime.
Modern tiles are mechanically fixed. Nails and clips at the perimeter and at defined intervals across the field, dry verge systems along the gable, dry ridge with mechanical fixings rather than bedded mortar. Stripping back to form an opening means releasing clips in sequence and putting them back the same way, and the flashing kit has to suit the profile depth of the specific tile. Putting a low profile kit against a deep interlocking tile leaves an open channel under the apron, and that channel fills the first time the rain arrives hard off the open ground to the west.
Bitumen underlay on the first phases, and the lap at an opening
The earliest Great Notley roofs predate breathable membranes. They carry type 1F bitumen felt underlay, which is impermeable, relies on the ventilated void behind it, and has gone brittle after thirty summers in a warm roof space.
Cutting into brittle felt takes care, because a tear that runs beyond the opening is a tear that has to be dressed and lapped properly rather than left. The detail at the head of a roof window is the one that matters: the underlay is cut, turned and lapped over the top of the flashing so any water that gets past the tile is carried onto the outside of the unit rather than behind it. On the later phases with a breathable membrane the same principle applies with a different material.
Converting a Great Notley loft, and the structure that comes first
A standard fink roof has no usable space in it, because the webs run straight through the middle of where a room would be. Converting one is a structural job before it is a glazing job.
The usual route is a new floor structure spanning between load bearing walls, new rafters or a supported ridge above it, and the old trusses cut away only once the replacement structure is carrying the roof. Roof windows are designed into that new structure from the start, which means the opening can be any sensible size and no longer answers to the six hundred centres. Where a room in the roof was built in from new on an attic truss house type, the clear span is already there and the constraint is the position of the ceiling tie instead.
Conservatories, and the solid roofs that replaced them
A great many Great Notley houses gained a polycarbonate or glass conservatory in the two thousands, and a great many of those have since had a solid insulated roof built over the existing frame. That is one of the most common places a rooflight lands in this village.
The new roof is a lightweight rafter system on the existing ring beam, insulated between and over, finished in tile or in a lightweight covering, with one or more flush units set into it. Two things decide whether it works. The frame below has to be sound enough to carry the additional weight, which is checked rather than assumed. And the pitch of the original conservatory roof is often below fifteen degrees, which rules out most roof windows and points the specification at a flat rooflight on a kerb instead.
Single storey rear extensions on a small plot
Plots here are compact and gardens are short, so rear extensions tend to be wide and shallow rather than deep. That shape has a particular daylight problem: the new room is lit only from the garden wall, and the old back wall of the house now stands between it and everything else.
A flat rooflight placed towards the house end of the new roof, rather than in the middle, puts light exactly where the room is darkest and washes the old wall rather than the new one. On a wide flat roof there is usually room for a roof lantern as well, though on a shallow plan a lantern can read as a lid. Four metres of width is roughly where a lantern starts to look right.
Roofs with no stack, and the unbroken slope that leaves
Very few houses in Great Notley have a chimney. Central heating arrived long before the estate did, and the flues that exist are usually small balanced terminals rather than masonry stacks.
This is quietly one of the best things about working here. There is no stack to keep a flashing clear of, no lead soakers dressed into brickwork, and no narrow trough between an upstand and a chimney collecting leaves through the winter. The slope is one uninterrupted plane from ridge to eaves, and the only things to work around are the truss positions and the soil vent pipe. Positioning becomes a question of where the light is wanted rather than where the roof will let you.
Cold roof voids, quilt at ceiling level and the ventilation path
The insulation in most Great Notley houses sits at ceiling level, between and over the ceiling ties, with a cold ventilated void above it. Air enters at the eaves, moves up the slope and leaves at the ridge or through tile vents.
Forming an opening interrupts that path. The trimming timbers around a roof window sit across the line the air was taking, and if nothing is done the void above the opening becomes a still pocket where moisture collects on the underside of the felt in January. The answer is straightforward: keep a clear route around both sides of the trimmed opening, maintain the eaves gap with proprietary trays, and add ventilation at the ridge where the geometry has closed something down. It costs almost nothing at the time.
Exposure across the country park and the open ground west
Great Notley sits high on the west side of Braintree with the country park and open farmland beyond it. There is very little between these roofs and the prevailing south westerly, and the estate’s own planting is only now reaching a height where it does anything.
Exposure changes two details rather than the whole specification. Flashing laps are generously sized because wind driven rain travels uphill across a slope as readily as it runs down one. And on a flat roof the kerb height matters more than it would in a sheltered position, because wind pushes standing water up a vertical face. One hundred and fifty millimetres from the finished surface is the working figure and there is no case for less on this side of the town.
Planning conditions on the later phases
Permitted development covers rooflights on most houses, subject to the unit projecting no more than one hundred and fifty millimetres beyond the plane of the existing slope and sitting no higher than the highest part of the roof. Great Notley is where that general rule most often has something attached to it.
Estate phases are frequently granted with conditions restricting or removing permitted development rights, and separately the title may carry covenants requiring the freeholder’s consent for external alterations. Neither is a closed door and neither is unusual. Both are checked before anything is ordered, because a check takes a morning and an application takes weeks.
Glass for a small room under a large area of sky
Modern estate houses are well insulated, reasonably airtight and comparatively small in plan. That combination overheats faster than an older house does, and a horizontal rooflight collects the summer sun at close to its full strength because the sun in July is almost overhead at midday.
Solar control glass is the usual call on any south or west facing plane here, and on a flat roof it is close to automatic. The g-value is the number that governs it: lower means less solar energy through the glass, and a little less light with it. The trade is worth making. An unmanaged rooflight over a small south facing kitchen produces a room that is cheap to heat in February and unusable by three in the afternoon in July, and the fix afterwards is external shading rather than better glass.
Thirty years on, and the units from the first phases
The earliest Great Notley houses are now well over thirty years old, and the rooflights fitted into their garages, porches and early extensions have reached the end of a normal working life. Sealed units last twenty to twenty five years as a rule.
The signs are consistent: misting between the panes that will not clear, a frame that has gone chalky and brittle in the sun, or daylight showing around the edge of the internal lining. A like for like replacement into a sound existing kerb is often a single day, and it is the sensible moment to move up in glass specification, because the opening is already formed and the labour is already committed. Modern units carry far better U-values than anything available when the estate was built.
Notifying the work on a Great Notley house
New rooflights and replacements are both notifiable under the Building Regulations. Part L sets the thermal standard the unit has to meet, Part K applies where there is a risk of falling, and Part B applies where an opening serves as escape from a converted loft room.
Sunspire handles the notification as part of the job through Braintree District Council or an approved inspector. On a newer house there is a second reason to keep the paperwork tidy. Structural warranties on estate housing carry conditions about alterations, and work that was properly notified and properly executed keeps that record clean. An unnotified alteration surfaces years later when a buyer’s solicitor asks for a completion certificate nobody applied for.
Starting a Great Notley enquiry
Sunspire travels to Great Notley from Chelmsford, an easy run up the A131 and well inside the thirty miles by road the business covers. The village sits in the same district as Braintree, and the full list of towns is on the areas we cover page.
Here the fastest first move is different from anywhere else in the county. Put your head into the loft hatch and take one photograph up the slope showing the trusses, one of the ceiling in the room below, and note the spacing between two trusses with a tape. Add the covering type from the garden and the room dimensions, and that is enough for a genuinely useful range by email rather than a guess. A fixed written price follows a survey, and the drivers behind the figure are set out on the costs page.
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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.
- Surveyed before it is priced
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
- Building Control notification handled
- New installations and replacements