VELUX windows in Stockport

Benefits of natural light under the slates

The top floor is where daylight runs out. The side walls of a loft are low, the gable end may carry a small window or none, and the slope closes in on the room. A roof window set into that slope brings light in from above and from the side together, which is the gap between a room that is lived in and one that only stores boxes. On a landing, a window in the roof lights the stairwell down through the house.

The gain is plain brightness and a lighter feel to a small room, with the sky visible from a bed or a desk. The light a window delivers varies with its size, the pitch of the roof and whatever stands between the slope and the sun.

Positioning the window in the slope

Set high, a window floods the middle of the room; set low, it lights a bed or a desk and gives a view. In a long loft, two smaller windows can light the floor more evenly than one large one. Rafter spacing fixes where an opening can sit without extra structure, so the timbers are mapped before a position is marked.

Loft conversion windows

Head height limits where a window can go in the slope, and the stair below limits where the rafters can be cut. One large window can serve a small room, and a pair side by side suits a wider one. When a conversion is still on the drawing board, its windows belong to the same Building Regulations application as the stair and the floor. Where one already exists, the survey checks that its windows still do the job they were put in for.

Bedrooms, offices and play rooms

• Child's bedroom: a blind that blacks out the room and a window that closes with one hand.
• Home office: a position that keeps the screen out of direct sun.
• Landing: light is all it needs.
• Loft kitchen-diner: a window that opens for steam.

Who will use the room, who will do the opening and how high the handle sits are settled before any size or type is suggested.

Stockport houses and where windows suit them

• Davenport and the Heatons: tall Edwardian and Victorian villas with big attics, where a run of VELUX windows can turn one into a full floor of the house.
• Reddish, Heaton Norris and Edgeley: red-brick terraces with lofts short of light, where one or two windows in the back slope may be all a conversion needs.
• Heald Green, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall and Hazel Grove: semis and bungalows that can take a window over a dark landing.
• Romiley, Marple and High Lane: hill-edge houses in stone and brick, where the flashing is chosen to suit each roof covering.

Replacement of an old or failed window

A window is ready to come out when the glazed unit has misted between its panes, the sash sticks or drops, the handle or hinges no longer do their job, or the frame has worn past use. A like-for-like swap keeps the existing opening in the roof. The old window comes out and a replacement with a matching size code goes into the space, with a fresh flashing kit closing the joint to the slates or tiles. The job is taken step by step on replacing an old VELUX window.

How the installation process runs

1. Survey. The free survey records the window's size code and type, the roof covering and how the roof is reached.
2. Fixed written quote. The figure rests on the survey, since a photo alone cannot price a window.
3. Covering lifted. The roof covering is lifted round the opening, and where the opening is new or larger the rafters are cut and trimmed.
4. Frame fixed. The frame goes in and the flashing kit seals it into the covering.
5. Sash and lining. The sash and glazing go on, and the lining finishes the shaft inside.
6. Handover. The window is worked through with you: the handle or remote, the blinds that fit it and how the outer pane is reached for cleaning.

Fitting the frame and flashing is our work, and our 10-year workmanship guarantee for it is a written one.

The flashing kit

This is the part that keeps water out past the frame. VELUX makes kits for different roof coverings, and the right one depends on whether the roof is slate or tile and on the profile of the tile. The wrong kit leaves a gap, so the survey records the covering as well as the window.

What the new window should meet

A replacement element should also be no worse than the one it replaces. Replacing only the glass, or a window in its existing frame, is not providing a controlled fitting, so the energy limits do not apply to that work. Putting in a whole new window is a different job, and the limits further down this page apply to it. Ventilation is checked at survey.

Keeping the opening or making a new one

If the replacement matches the old window's size, the structure round the opening stays as it is. Enlarging the window, or moving it, means the rafters are cut and trimmed and the job becomes a new opening; the short guide to the new opening or the same one sets out what changes. How the roof is reached, and whether scaffolding comes into it, is checked at survey, and doing a skylight swap without scaffolding covers the thinking.

One window or a run of them

In a loft conversion, replacing the windows can be part of a wider plan for the room. Two or three windows along one slope are surveyed as a single job, because the flashing, the spacing between frames and the line of the lining all have to agree, and the whole slope is measured rather than each window alone.

The usual answer

In England, adding a rooflight or roof window to a house is usually permitted development under Class C, so it does not need a planning application, provided it meets the Class C limits and conditions. More detail, including the condition for windows on a side-facing slope, sits in the guide to Class C and the side-slope condition.

Conservation areas and listed houses

A conservation area does not by itself remove Class C; an Article 4 direction or a planning condition can, so the question for your own address is whether either applies, and the council can say. Class C has no listed-building exclusion in England, so a listed house still has Class C planning rights, but a new or altered rooflight on a listed building will almost always need listed building consent, and that consent decides the job. Roof windows made for such houses are explained on our conservation rooflights page.

If an application is needed

Sometimes the checks show that Class C does not apply, because of an Article 4 direction, a condition on an earlier permission or the kind of home. Planning permission is then needed before work begins, and the application goes to the planning authority, which inside the borough is Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council. A dormer is judged separately from a roof window, so a loft plan that includes one is looked at as a whole. The survey records which slope each window faces.

Towns on the park edge

Inside the Peak District park boundary, planning is the National Park Authority's job, and the local council handles homes beyond it. The park designation alone does not strip Class C from a house.