Skylights and rooflights for Radcliffe's Irwell Valley terraces, semis and new estates

The town keeps much of its Victorian and Edwardian terraced housing. Terraces of that age in Lancashire mill towns are typically red brick under Welsh slate, and a roof window in a slope like that has to be specified for the covering, because the join between window and slates is where a roof is most likely to go wrong.

Matched to slate

Slate needs a flashing kit designed for it, so the slates are lapped properly around the frame. We look at the slates closely at the survey, because a roof that has been patched over the years may have slates of mixed age, and that affects how neat the finished window will be. Our note on flashing for slate and tile explains the kits.

Which slope

The rear slope is the usual choice for a loft room, and it keeps the front elevation as it was. If a window must go on a slope that faces the side, the planning guide sets out extra conditions, so we raise it early. Read the planning guide before the layout is fixed.

Rooms that stay narrow

A terrace loft is long and thin. A window in the rear slope lights one end, so the position of the stair matters as much as the window. If the head of the stair comes up near the window, the room works. If it comes up in the middle, the window may sit over the bed instead. We work it through with you at the survey, so the furniture fits and the handle falls where a hand can find it.

Handle and blind

On a steep slope the window can be tall, with the handle at a fixed height. If it is in a bedroom used daily, an electric or solar opening saves climbing on a chair, and the blind can run from the same handset. A study or a landing can make do with a pole. Blackout is the usual choice for sleeping, and a pleated blind suits a room with a desk.

A loft that becomes a room

A bedroom in the roof needs a safe way out of the house, and the Building Regulations guide covers the requirement. Where the work is notifiable, we handle the notification for the windows we fit.

The national planning dataset records Article 4 direction areas in parts of Radcliffe. We do not guess what they cover, and nor should anyone else. What a direction restricts depends on its terms, so your address goes to Bury Council ahead of the quote and you hear their answer. The planning guide explains what an Article 4 direction can do in general.

Conservation areas

Whether a conservation area touches your road is not something we guess. The council check covers that too. An English house inside a conservation area keeps its right to add a rooflight unless something else removes it.

Listed addresses

Historic England lists buildings in Radcliffe, including Radcliffe Tower, the Church of St Mary and St Bartholomew, the war memorial, Scotsen Fold Farmhouse and Stand Lodge. If your own house is listed, a change like this almost always needs listed building consent. Our guide to rooflights and listed buildings sets out how the process works.

What a listed address changes in practice

Listed buildings in the town include a tower and churches, but also a farmhouse and a lodge, and the list does not stop at grand names. On a listed home the consent decides the window, and a slim, flush fit that respects the roofline is the likely starting point. The consent has to come first, and we say so at the start so nothing is ordered too soon.

Before you order anything

The sensible order is address check, survey, then quote. The survey looks at the roof and the room. The check looks at the paper. Between them you know what can be done, and how it will be opened, shaded and cleaned, before the fixed written quote follows. A condition on an earlier planning permission can also take permitted development away, so if you have the papers for an old extension, have them to hand.