On the south-east side of Newport, 23 road miles over the Severn
Rooflights and skylights around Avonmouth
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
- We handle the Building Control notification where notifiable
A residential district between the works and the motorway
Avonmouth is a port and an outer suburb of Bristol, on the north bank of the mouth of the River Avon and the eastern shore of the Severn Estuary. Its long-established residential area lies between the industrialised zone and the motorway. Maps from the early nineteenth century show the area as farmland, and the first development was a landing stage built in 1860 by Bristol Corporation.
The Portway was built between 1919 and 1926 to give more direct road access to Avonmouth from Bristol, and a Church of England chapel was established in the new settlement late in the nineteenth century. Dates like these tell you when a place grew, not how each house is built, so the table lists homes by their general age and shape. A rooflight suits a roof, and the survey is where we see yours.
| Home | Roof | Ask about |
|---|---|---|
| Older terrace | Pitched, with a back extension | A roof window above the stairs, a rooflight at the back |
| Semi-detached from between the wars | Pitched or hipped | A pair of roof windows to open the loft |
| Later house or flat-roofed addition | Low pitch or flat | A sun tunnel for a hall; flat glass on a kitchen |
What to look at first for an Avonmouth roof
11:00
Article 4, listing and Bristol City Council
For planning purposes Avonmouth is part of Bristol, and Bristol City Council decides. The rules for England apply. On a house, a rooflight or roof window is usually permitted development under Class C, within the limits the planning guide for England sets out in full.
A flat has no householder permitted development rights. A house created through a change-of-use permitted development right has no Class C right. A council can remove the right in an area with an Article 4 direction, and an old condition on the house's planning permission can have the same effect, so the address goes to the council first.
A listed house keeps its Class C right, though a new or altered rooflight on a listed building will almost always need listed building consent, and that consent decides the job. There is no fee for the application.
12:00
Neighbouring places
A hall and stairs that never get a morning
Daylight for the middle of a terrace.
The Severn Beach line has stations in Avonmouth, and on a winter morning the walk to one starts in the dark. Before that, start at the foot of the stairs. In a terrace the hall and stairwell tend to be the darkest part of the house, because the rooms either side take the windows and the party walls take the rest. On a winter morning the light there is the bulb on the ceiling and nothing else.
A roof window above the stairwell is one answer, where the stair runs up to a landing under the roof. It brings daylight down the stairwell, and it can be opened to let air through the house. A sun tunnel is the other answer, and it works where the landing is below a loft rather than directly under the slope.
The two products suit different situations. A roof window needs the slope to sit above the stairwell, and a headroom clear of the sloping ceiling. A sun tunnel needs a clear run between the roof and the ceiling, and it is chosen when that run exists. Our sun tunnel page shows how the pieces go together.
Fire safety is the other thing a stair carries. A stairwell is the escape route in a house, and any change to what sits above it is thought about with that in mind. Approved Document B is the guidance for England, and our English planning notes point to it. We raise the point at the survey, and building control confirms what applies to a particular stair.
Daylight in a hall changes how the whole ground floor feels. Doors that are shut all day, because the rooms are in use, no longer leave the hall dark. In the evening the effect reverses: the stairwell glass reads as a black square above the staircase, and the hall light carries on.
Both products leave a mark on the ceiling or the stairwell, and finishing that neatly is part of the job. The plaster around the opening, the angle of the lining and the paint at the edge are what you see every time you go up. It is worth settling that detail while the glass is still being chosen.
A stairwell over a day
- 07:50Out of bedThe hall is the darkest room in the house.
- 13:00MiddayDaylight from above reaches the stair treads.
- 19:00EveningThe glass above shows the lit hall back.
A loft bedroom that has to be dark in the afternoon
Blackout for anyone who sleeps when the sun is up.
Who sleeps in the day? Parents of new babies do, and so does anyone who works a night. A bedroom in the roof, with a window looking at the sky, is the hardest room to darken at one in the afternoon, because the glass faces the brightest part of the day directly.
Blackout blinds are the answer, and they are chosen with the window. The maker's range shows which blinds go with which window, and the survey settles the choice. How dark the room needs to be is the first thing to say at the survey.
A bed pushed under the slope can make the sash hard to reach, and in that case electric or solar operation is worth asking about, since the sash then opens and closes without a reach.
At night, the window and the blind do a second job. With the room lit, the glass shows the room to anyone outside who looks up. Close the blind, and the room is private again. The same blackout blind that keeps the afternoon out keeps the evening in.
Warmth is the other side of a bedroom in the roof. A room under the slope takes the heat of a summer afternoon, and an opening window lets it out in the evening. A blind on the outside of the glass can shade it before the heat arrives, and the maker lists which windows take one.
The Building Regulations affect a loft bedroom beyond the window. A loft that is used as a bedroom needs a route out in a fire, and that depends on how high the room is above the ground and what the stair looks like. Building control confirms the position, and the window is chosen to agree with it. Our VELUX windows page lists the options.
An old rooflight that has clouded over
Replacing the glass, or the whole unit.
A misted rooflight is one whose sealed glass unit has clouded between the panes, so the view up through it looks cloudy from inside. Sometimes the answer is new glass, and sometimes the frame has had its day and the whole window is replaced.
How do you tell which? The frame decides it. A frame in good order can take a fresh sealed unit. If the frame is tired or no longer fits the opening well, a complete new window is the better choice. The misted rooflights page sets out the reasoning, and the survey applies it to your roof.
The regulations treat the two jobs differently. Approved Document L says that fitting new glass alone, or a window into the frame already there, does not count as providing a controlled fitting, so that kind of job sits outside the energy limits. Putting in a complete unit is a different matter, because the complete unit is the controlled fitting and it is expected to meet the figures.
Those figures are 1.4 W/m²K, or Window Energy Rating Band B, for a roof window, and 2.2 W/m²K for a rooflight, with a replacement expected to be no worse than the element it replaces. They differ between the two products, and the survey states which applies.
For a swap like this, the England section of the guide covers the points that count. We still put the address to Bristol City Council where there is any doubt.
The evening shows whether a replacement was worth it. A clear pane over a landing or a kitchen is easy to ignore in daylight, but at seven o'clock, with the lamps on, a cloudy unit shows up as a blur and a clean one as a plain black square.
Ventilation needs the same attention as glass. Approved Document F expects vents on a replacement window to be no smaller than those on the old one, where it had them, and controllable by the occupant or automatically. If the old window had none, one way to show the room is no worse off is to add trickle vents of a set minimum size, and where that cannot be done, to come as close as is feasible.
A unit that opens lets a room air first thing, and a built-in vent can pass a little air even with the sash shut. Both are choices for the survey, because they depend on what the old window had and on how the room is used.
If the old rooflight is a flat one on an upstand, the same sorting applies. The glass and the frame are looked at, the upstand and the roof covering around it are looked at too, and a fixed written quote follows the free survey. No figure is given before the survey has been done, because the roof and the frame decide what the job is.
For a clouded rooflight above a stairwell or a landing, reach is part of the question too. A fitting that sits where nobody can reach it should be chosen to need as little attention as possible once it is in, and a clear pane overhead is something you notice only when it is wrong.
Avonmouth: a few straight answers
Is Avonmouth within your area?
Yes. Avonmouth is south-east of Newport and 23 miles away by road, over the Severn. The survey carries no charge.
Which council do I speak to about a rooflight?
Bristol City Council, since Avonmouth is a suburb of Bristol. You do not need to contact it first, because we put your address to the council before work, and the planning guide sets out the English rules in full.
My terrace hall is dark. Roof window or sun tunnel?
It depends on the roof above the hall. Where the stairwell sits under the slope, a roof window suits it. Where there is a loft between the roof and the ceiling, a sun tunnel is the product designed for the run.
Can an old misted rooflight just have its glass replaced?
Sometimes. If the frame is sound, a new sealed unit can be fitted in it. If it is not, a complete window is the answer.
Who handles the Building Regulations?
We handle the Building Regulations notification where the work is notifiable, using the council's building control team or a registered building control approver.
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10-year workmanship guarantee.
Building Control notification handled where notifiable.