Rooflights and skylights for Hendreforgan homes

In June the sky is bright long before most alarms go off, and a bedroom in the roof takes every bit of it. A roof window can sit in the slope above the bed, with no wall, curtain rail or neighbouring gable between you and the morning. That puts the blind at the top of the list, ahead of frame colour and finish. For a sleeping room, a blackout blind is where to start, chosen alongside the window.

Warmth is the next question. A room under a slope can hold the day's heat into the night, so a window that opens earns its keep. A sash that tilts or swings wide lets the room air through the small hours. The page on roof windows sets out what is on offer, and the comparison of a centre pivot and a top-hung window helps you decide how the sash should move.

Cutting a new opening changes the roof. Making the hole usually means altering the roof's frame, and the slope must be able to carry the weight of what is fitted into it, or be strengthened. Because of that, a new rooflight will generally need Building Regulations approval, and where the work is notifiable we handle the notification with local authority building control or a registered building control approver.

Sill height gets less attention than it should. Set too high, the handle is a stretch; set too low, the sash meets the headboard or a wardrobe. It helps to stand in the room, note the bed and the furniture, and work out where the opening part will fall.

If the loft is being turned into a bedroom, say so at the start. Approved Document B (Wales) sets out what an escape window must be, and which route suits the house is a conversation to have early.

Weather on the roof is the other thing a loft bedroom hears. VELUX lists rain noise reduction among its glazing options, and which options exist varies from one window to the next, so it is a question for the day the window is priced. A bedroom is the room where that noise is noticed, so it is worth raising before the order is placed.

After dark the pane goes black and holds the lit room. With the blind down, it is a dark ceiling over a sleeping bed.

Does the glass above the bath clear by itself, or does it drip onto the sill? Under a slope the pane is exposed to the cold side of the roof, so the vapour from a hot bath finds it quickly. So the shortlist is practical: glass that opens, an extractor left running after the shower, and a blind made for damp air.

Swapping a window brings a ventilation question with it. Approved Document F (Wales) says a replacement for a window that carried trickle vents should have vents of no smaller size, so say at the survey if the old frame had a slot along its top edge.

Privacy needs a look. By day a window in the slope is seldom overlooked, yet after dark a lit bathroom can be seen from any higher window facing it. A blind answers that, and standing at the spot where the window will go is the quickest way to see what looks back.

Reach matters here. A window above the bath, or set back behind the basin, is a stretch to open by hand, and a model worked from a switch or remote takes the strain out of it. One thing to know: the rain sensor is VELUX's own feature, fitted to its solar and electric windows only, which is why the model is named when one is suggested.

Blinds are worth a word. A bathroom roof window is lit from inside at night, so a blind is as much about privacy as about the morning sun. It is better chosen with the window than guessed at afterwards, because the maker's own range for each window is the place to start.

Swapping an old window within the same opening is a lighter job than cutting a fresh one. The answer on replacing an old skylight shows how they differ.