Rhondda Cynon Taf, west of Newport by a road distance of 25 miles
Skylights and rooflights across Porth
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
- We handle the Building Control notification where notifiable
Where two valleys meet at Porth
Porth, Y Porth in Welsh, lies in the Rhondda Valley and is regarded as the gateway connecting the Rhondda Fawr and Rhondda Fach valleys, because both valleys meet here. Two bridges were built over the River Rhondda at Porth, Pont Rheola and Pont y Cymmer, at a time when no permanent buildings of note stood here. The village had its first railway station in 1861, and a passenger service followed in January 1863.
For the houses themselves we go by type and age, and the roof tells us what a street cannot. A house with a roomy loft, a long plan with a stair in the middle, or a single-storey addition behind the kitchen each asks for something different overhead. The survey starts with the covering, the pitch, and the space beneath.
| Home | Over the ceiling | Option |
|---|---|---|
| Two-storey house with a roomy loft | Pitched slope, loft boarded or empty | Roof windows for a bedroom, each with a blind to darken it |
| Long, narrow plan with a stair in the middle | Pitched, with an open loft above the landing | Sun tunnel on the slope, if the loft allows a route |
| House with a flat-roofed addition | Flat roof on joists | A flat rooflight over the dull end of the kitchen |
| Older house with its original slope | Covering put on long ago | Matching the covering is part of the plan |
The products that follow from those rows
11:00
Council and country: how a Porth roof is judged
Planning in Porth belongs to Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council. Height and projection limits are among the tests of whether a house rooflight can be permitted development, with the figures in our guide to Wales.
Rights of this kind can be taken away by a council's Article 4 direction or by a condition on a house's first planning permission. The council can tell you whether either applies to your house. A flat owner has no householder rights to begin with. Where a listed house is concerned, work that would affect its character needs listed building consent, applied for through the council. Cadw recommends which buildings are listed, and the Welsh Ministers compile the list.
12:00
Next on our list around Porth
A loft room above a two-storey house
Roof windows, and what the stair below has to do.
A two-storey house with a roomy loft invites a conversion, and the roof windows are what people picture first: sky overhead, a bed beneath, a blind to hold back the morning. The stair under them is the part that needs thought.
Fire safety comes first on that stair. Approved Document B (Wales) treats a loft conversion in a two-storey house as something that will normally mean a protected stairway: fire-resisting doors and partitions from the new room to the ground, where there were none. That is a bigger job than choosing glass, so it belongs in the plan from the start. The same guidance covers escape windows for upper-floor rooms (our Welsh planning guide points to it), and whether a particular roof window can serve as one is a matter for the survey and for building control.
The roof is the starting point whatever the age of the house: slate or tile, the pitch, the timbers seen from the loft hatch, and the height at the ridge. Roof windows go where there is headroom, and the height of a person standing beneath the opening matters as much as the floor area. Stand a broom handle upright where the window would be and look at where the slope meets it.
Blinds decide whether the room works at night and in the morning. A blackout blind lets a bedroom stay dark when the sun is up early in summer, while a lighter blind suits a study or a play space. Choose it with the window; a blind is the item most easily left until the room is already in use.
Think about summer as well. A room under the slope can run warm on a hot evening, so a window that opens and a blind that can be lowered across the glass both earn their keep. Say at the survey which way the slope faces.
If the stair rises under the slope, the head height at the top step can decide where a window may sit, so look at that spot as well as at the middle of the room.
The paperwork comes with the job. Putting a roof window into an existing home is building work in the eyes of the regulations, and we take care of notifying it where the work is notifiable. For the energy side, Approved Document L (Wales) says a new roof window should be no worse than 1.4 W/m²K, or Window Energy Rating band B, so ask for that figure on the quote.
Ask yourself, before the survey, how far the stair would change, whether the new room is a bedroom, and where a bed and a wardrobe would stand beneath the slope. Those three answers shape the windows more than the floor area does.
Who checks the work
Two kinds of building control body, and the choice between them.
Tynewydd Colliery opened in 1852 at the junction of the Rhondda Fawr and Rhondda Fach rivers, Porth's fourth mine. Coal mining in the Rhondda continued to expand through the early 20th century, although no further mines were sunk in Porth. Work on a house leaves a quieter record: a notification, an inspection, a certificate. It helps to know who issues them before the work starts.
Fitting any of these counts as building work, because the regulations class them as "controlled fittings": a window, a roof window, a rooflight. A newly cut rooflight opening will generally call for approval from a building control body, for reasons that include the roof structure being altered, the roof needing to carry the extra weight, and fire performance near a boundary.
In Wales there are two kinds of building control body: the local authority building control service, and a private registered building control approver. Planning Portal Wales says customers are free to choose which type they use. Private firms must be registered with the Building Safety Regulator as registered building control approvers, a regime that began in Wales on 6 April 2024. The Building Safety Regulator oversees those approvers and registered building inspectors, while the Welsh Ministers regulate local authority building control.
Replacement work has a separate path. The Welsh Government lists competent person schemes for replacement windows, doors, roof windows and rooflights, under which a registered installer notifies the local authority and issues a certificate of compliance. Those schemes cover replacements, and a new rooflight will generally need approval from a building control body.
Where the work is notifiable, we handle the Building Regulations notification with local authority building control or a registered building control approver. The page on roof windows and Building Regulations goes into the detail for that product.
If you already prefer one body, say so at the survey. If you do not, there is no need to settle it before the visit.
| Body | Regulated by |
|---|---|
| Local authority building control | The Welsh Ministers |
| Registered building control approver | The Building Safety Regulator |
The landing nobody looks at
A sun tunnel over the stair head, and what a lit house does to it.
Stand on the landing with the bedroom doors shut and count the windows. A long, narrow house with a stair in the middle can have none, and the space spends the day lit by a bulb.
Daylight from above is the answer, and a sun tunnel can deliver it: a dome on the slope, a tube, and a diffuser in the ceiling, so that daylight comes down through the loft. The route has to clear tanks, cables and boxes, and the tube runs from the slope to the ceiling, so where the landing sits under the pitch matters. Whether a short, straight route exists is the first question at the survey, and a gentle bend is possible in some cases, depending on the product.
After dark the tube has no light to carry. What you see in the ceiling is a pale disc, and the landing lamp takes over. Keep that in mind if the landing is where someone walks at night: a sun tunnel is a daytime fitting, and a night light on the wall stays useful.
Where else could one go? Halls, boot rooms and small cloakrooms all suit a tube. A bedroom needs something different, since a tube over a bed brings the early morning into the room, and there a roof window and a good blackout blind make the better choice. The sun tunnels hub covers the rest.
On the roof, the flashing has to suit the covering, so tell us whether it is slate, tile or profiled concrete tile, and look into the loft from the hatch with a torch to see what lies beneath the slope.
Finally, look at the ceiling. The diffuser should sit where it lights the stair head and the doorways, which may not be the exact middle of the landing. A tape measure held up to the ceiling at several spots, with the loft route checked at each, will settle it faster than any drawing. Pale paint on the stair walls helps whatever daylight arrives. A mirror or a glossy surface opposite the ceiling disc can also carry some of it further along the landing.
Porth: questions before a survey
Is Porth one of your places?
Yes: Porth is 25 road miles out of Newport on the western side, and a free survey comes before any price is given.
What happens to my staircase in a loft conversion?
It will normally need protecting. Approved Document B (Wales) points to fire-resisting doors and partitions from the loft room to the foot of the stairs where none exist now, and it covers escape windows for upper-floor rooms too, so the survey looks at the window with that in mind. Building control confirms what applies to your own house.
Do I get to pick who inspects the work?
Planning Portal Wales says customers are free to choose between the local authority building control service and a registered building control approver. Where the work is notifiable, we handle the notification through local authority building control or a registered building control approver.
Can a sun tunnel go where the loft is full of boxes?
It needs a clear route from the roof to the ceiling, so boxes, tanks and cables may have to move. The survey checks the loft route first, and it helps to say in advance what is stored up there and how much of it.
Who is the planning authority for Porth?
Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council decides. Our Welsh planning guide explains how rooflights on houses are treated.
What should I send to begin?
Use the quote form, or write to info@supremeskylightsnewport.co.uk, or send a WhatsApp message to 07880 284133. The street and the room in mind are enough to start, and the survey is free.
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10-year workmanship guarantee.
Building Control notification handled where notifiable.