Roof Lantern Installation
Flat-roof glazing sized to the room and detailed into the kerb below it.
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South Essex
Rooflight installation in Wickford
Postwar plotland origins, bungalows. What that means for getting glass into a roof here is the whole of this page.
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In Wickford
What we install on Wickford 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
16 things worth knowing about Wickford roofs
Wickford was not planned. It was sold off in strips. Farmland went under the hammer as plotland in the early twentieth century, buyers put up whatever they could afford on a long narrow plot, and the town filled in around those parcels over the following eighty years. The result is a roofscape unlike anywhere else in the Chelmsford travel area: single storey almost everywhere, extended piecemeal, sitting on low ground beside a river that has form.
Sunspire fits new rooflights and replaces units that have reached the end of their life across Wickford, Runwell, Shotgate and Nevendon. This page is about what that particular building history means when you want daylight through the roof.
- 01 Plotland origins, and the roofs that grew out of them
- 02 Bungalows everywhere, and the pitch they were built at
- 03 Pitch below fifteen degrees, and what will actually sit on it
- 04 The Crouch through the town, and what low ground does to a roof
- 05 Ventilation once a bungalow roof has been opened
- 06 Reaching the middle of a wide bungalow plan
- 07 Sun tunnels through a Wickford roof void
- 08 Self-built additions, and the junctions they left behind
- 09 Shrinkable clay under the town, and roofs that have moved
- 10 The tile the bungalows were re-covered with
- 11 Chalet conversions, dormers and the slope left over
- 12 Flat roofed rears and garages from the seventies onwards
- 13 Which way a Wickford plot faces
- 14 Kerb heights on low lying Wickford ground
- 15 The Regulations, and what gets notified on a Wickford job
- 16 Getting a Wickford roof priced
Plotland origins, and the roofs that grew out of them
The original plotland buildings were modest: timber framed, corrugated or lightly tiled, put up in stages by their owners. Very few survive untouched, but their footprints do, and so does the habit of building outwards rather than upwards.
What that leaves is a roof that is rarely one plane. A Wickford house of that lineage typically carries an original range, a later rear addition at a different pitch, a flat roofed link between the two, and a garage roof abutting somewhere along the flank. Every junction between those pieces is a place water has to be managed, and the position of a new opening is chosen with the junctions in mind rather than the room below alone.
Bungalows everywhere, and the pitch they were built at
Wickford is a bungalow town, and that is the single most useful thing to know before choosing a product. A bungalow gives you a roof directly above every habitable room, which is the ideal starting condition for roof glazing.
The complication is angle. A good deal of postwar single storey building here sits between twenty and thirty degrees, and the later infill can be shallower still. Most roof windows want fifteen degrees as an absolute minimum, some are rated from ten with a specific underlay detail, and below that the manufacturer will not stand behind the weathering. The pitch is measured at survey rather than estimated from the pavement.
Pitch below fifteen degrees, and what will actually sit on it
Where a Wickford roof is genuinely shallow, the honest answer is that a standard pitched roof window is not achievable and the job changes shape.
Two routes usually work. A unit designed for low pitch, installed with the manufacturer’s specified underlay apron and increased head lap, which extends the range downwards by a few degrees. Or a kerb, built up off the existing structure to carry a flat rooflight instead, which turns a difficult pitched detail into a straightforward flat one. The second option costs more in carpentry and less in worry.
Measure the pitch with a level and a rule before anybody talks about a model number.
The Crouch through the town, and what low ground does to a roof
The River Crouch runs straight through Wickford, and the town has a long memory of what it can do. Flood alleviation work has changed the picture, but the ground level facts have not: much of the older housing sits low, flat and close to water.
That shows up in roof work in one specific way. Ground water and a high water table keep the subsoil damp, roof voids over single storey ranges run cooler and closer to dew point, and condensation risk inside a cold roof is higher here than on the ridge at Billericay. Any new opening cut into such a roof has to keep the existing ventilation path clear rather than blocking it.
Ventilation once a bungalow roof has been opened
A traditional cold roof works by moving air from eaves to ridge across the top of the insulation. Cut an opening into it and you interrupt that path on both sides of the new frame.
The fix is not complicated but it does need doing. Air has to be able to pass around the trimmed opening, which means keeping a clear gap above the insulation at the sides, and where the ceiling now follows the rafter line around a reveal, insulating between rafters without filling the void. Over a Wickford kitchen or bathroom, where moisture load is high and the roof is close overhead, this is the difference between a dry void and a damp one.
Reaching the middle of a wide bungalow plan
The classic Wickford problem is a deep plan with rooms in the middle that touch no external wall. A hall, an inner lobby, a bathroom carved out of a former bedroom.
Roof glazing solves this in a way a window cannot, because the roof is directly above rather than off to one side. A rooflight in a flat roof faces the whole dome of the sky and is shaded by nothing, which is why it delivers something in the order of two to three times the illuminance of a vertical window of the same area. In a deep bungalow that ratio is the whole argument.
Sun tunnels through a Wickford roof void
Where the room below has no direct roofline, because a void or a landing sits between the ceiling and the covering, a sun tunnel carries daylight down through a reflective duct.
They suit the Wickford stock well. The duct is small enough to pass between rafters or trusses without structural work, the roof end is weathered with a flashing chosen for the covering exactly as a window would be, and the ceiling end is a diffuser flush with the plaster. Rigid ducts hold their reflectivity better than flexible ones over a long run, and a straight vertical drop delivers more light than a dog-legged route around a tank.
Self-built additions, and the junctions they left behind
Incremental building leaves incremental detailing. A great many Wickford roofs carry an abutment where a later flat roof meets an older pitched one, weathered with a flashing that was fitted by somebody working alone on a Sunday.
Those junctions are where a survey spends its time. Where a new rooflight is going into the flat section, the position is set clear of the abutment and clear of the outlet, so the kerb is not sitting in the path water takes to leave the roof. Where the flashing at that junction is already tired, it is dealt with while the covering is open and the scaffold is up, rather than left for a second visit.
Shrinkable clay under the town, and roofs that have moved
Wickford sits on London clay, which shrinks in a dry summer and swells again in winter. Combined with the shallow foundations common on plotland-era building, that produces movement, and movement shows up at roof level as a plane that is no longer true.
It matters for one practical reason. A rooflight frame is square and a moved roof is not, so the opening is set out from a measured survey rather than from the drawing. On a flat roof that has settled between joists, the fall is measured across the actual deck at the intended position, because a nominal 1:80 on paper can be nothing at all in the corner where the glass is going.
The tile the bungalows were re-covered with
Very few Wickford roofs still carry their original covering. Most were re-laid between the nineteen sixties and the nineteen nineties with a deep profile interlocking concrete tile, which is heavy, fast to lay and unforgiving of the wrong flashing.
The kit for that profile has a deep apron designed to sit down into the troughs of the tile. Using a low profile kit intended for slate or plain tile leaves the apron bridging the troughs, with a gap underneath that wind driven rain finds within a couple of winters. On the rare survivals of plain clay or slate near the older core, the kit changes accordingly, and the old tiles are salvaged and relaid around the opening rather than replaced with a modern substitute that will never match.
Chalet conversions, dormers and the slope left over
A large number of Wickford bungalows gained a first floor during the nineteen eighties and nineties, usually with a box dormer across the rear and rooms formed inside the roof.
That leaves a front slope untouched and a rear slope largely consumed. Where daylight is wanted in a room behind a box dormer, the useful surface is often the flat roof of the dormer itself rather than the remaining tiled slope, and a flush unit set into that deck lights the space from directly overhead. The kerb detail on a dormer deck is the same as on any flat roof, with the same requirement for a fall away from the abutment.
Flat roofed rears and garages from the seventies onwards
Single storey flat roofed additions are everywhere in Wickford, and many are now four or five decades into a covering that was designed for two.
Where the deck is sound, a flush rooflight goes in on a new kerb built off the joists, with the covering dressed up the sides and terminated under the unit. Where the deck has softened, the honest sequence is to re-cover first and glaze into a new surface, because setting good glass into a tired membrane spends money in the wrong order. A survey establishes which of the two you have by lifting a small area rather than by looking at it from a ladder.
Which way a Wickford plot faces
The plotland grid ran along its original field boundaries, which means the streets do not follow a single orientation and neighbouring houses can face quite differently. Orientation changes the glass specification more than the size does.
| Roof plane faces | Character of the light | Glazing call |
|---|---|---|
| North | Steady and cool, no glare at all | Neutral glass, larger area viable |
| East, towards Rettendon | Bright first thing, calm later | Neutral to light solar control |
| South, over the Crouch | Strong gain, nothing shading it | Solar control, area kept in check |
| Flat deck | Whole sky, peak summer sun overhead | Solar control almost always |
Kerb heights on low lying Wickford ground
The industry figure is 150mm from the finished roof surface to the top of the kerb, and it is the sum of the depth of water that can stand on a flat roof and the height wind driven rain can be pushed up a vertical face.
On the low, open ground either side of the Crouch there is little shelter and standing water is a live possibility on any deck with a compromised fall. That combination puts Wickford firmly in the group where 150mm is the floor rather than a target, and where shaving it so a unit sits flatter is a decision that gets revisited in the third winter.
The Regulations, and what gets notified on a Wickford job
Installing a new rooflight or replacing an existing one is notifiable work under Building Regulations in England. Part L covers thermal performance, Part K applies where there is a risk of falling, and Part B applies where a unit serves as a means of escape. Wickford falls under Basildon borough for both Building Control and planning.
Sunspire handles the notification as part of the job. An unnotified alteration tends to surface years later during a sale, when a buyer’s solicitor asks for a completion certificate that nobody ever obtained. Planning is separate, and for most Wickford houses rooflights fall within permitted development provided the unit projects no more than 150mm beyond the existing roof plane.
Getting a Wickford roof priced
Two photographs and a room measurement are enough for a sensible range by email: the roof from the garden, the ceiling from inside, and the approximate dimensions of the space below.
The survey then turns that range into a fixed written figure. On Wickford addresses it is looking at four things in particular: the true pitch, the condition of any flat deck, the ventilation path through the void, and how a scaffold reaches the rear on a plot that may still have its original narrow access. Wickford sits with Basildon and the rest of the county on the areas we cover page, and the costs guide sets out what moves the number between the two figures.
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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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- Building Control notification handled
- New installations and replacements