Installing rooflights or skylights in bungalow conversions on generous plots at Ewloe
Rooflight installation in Ewloe follows its housing: detached houses and bungalows on generous plots, older cottages along the lanes and newer estate houses near the main roads. Skylight work here is often a loft or bungalow conversion, built to the Welsh Building Regulations rather than the English ones.
19.2 road miles south of Liverpool city centre
What leaves an Ewloe bungalow or detached house short of daylight?
- The bungalow's inner hallAn inner hall in an Ewloe estate bungalow: the bedrooms and bathroom lead off a passage that has no window.
- The converted loft roomA bedroom built into the roof of a detached house near Ewloe Green, lit by one small gable window, so the far end stays shady.
- The deep-plan kitchen extensionAt the back of a deep kitchen-diner added to a 1970s house on Ewloe's edge, where the garden doors light the table and leave the worktops dark.
Bungalow inner halls, loft rooms, deep-plan kitchens
Skylight installation in Ewloe spans old cottages, 1960s and 1970s estate houses, bungalows and chalet bungalows, and the larger detached homes built on the plots that surround them.
- Lanterns over the big kitchen-diner extensions that Ewloe's detached houses have added, sized to the opening the structure will carry.
- Flat rooflights for garage conversions and flat-roofed utility rooms, fitted on a raised kerb so rain drains away from the glass.
- Roof windows for chalet bungalows and loft conversions, where the rear slope carries the bedroom's only daylight and has to be framed and flashed carefully.
- Opening rooflights above a first-floor landing or a loft bedroom, so warm air leaves through the roof when the room is closed up.
Lanes, estates and the bungalows between them
Ewloe is a village with a ring of development around it, and the roofs show how that happened. The older core is a scatter of cottages and farmhouses along the lanes, with small roofs, deep walls and loft spaces that were never meant as living rooms. Many of those buildings have been extended sideways and backwards over the years, and the best light now sometimes comes from an addition rather than from the original house.
The much larger share of Ewloe is twentieth-century building. Estates of the 1960s and 1970s brought semis and short rows of town houses with plain tiled roofs, and the detached houses of the same period stand on bigger plots with space beside them for a garage and a drive. Bungalows and chalet bungalows are common here, built on single storeys or with a room in the roof, and those are the houses that most often need a rooflight, because the bedrooms and the bathroom sit away from the outside walls.
Closer to the A55 and A494 junction, the newer streets are made of estate houses from the last few decades, with concrete interlocking tiles, trussed-rafter roofs and rear gardens that back onto fields or other plots. The jobs there tend to be a spare room made out of the loft, a windowless landing or a kitchen extension with a lantern above.
Because the housing is spread out, a visit in Ewloe often takes in a mix of roof types in a few streets. A bungalow may call for a sun tunnel where a chalet wants roof windows, and the two sets of constraints barely overlap.
Older cottages add a third type of problem. Their walls are thick, their ceilings are low and their roofs were built long before anyone thought of a skylight, so the timber is sized for the load it was built to carry and no more. Where a small old rooflight already sits in such a roof, swapping it is often the sensible job: the opening exists, and the survey just confirms the framing around it.
The newest streets offer the opposite. A recent estate house has a tidy, regular roof with trusses at known spacings and a covering in good order, so the decisions are about position and size rather than about what is hidden. The loft may still be full of insulation, tanks and cable runs that need clearing back from the opening before it is marked out.
Chalet bungalows deserve a note of their own. The rear slope usually holds the only bedroom window that looks over the garden, so a roof window there has to open wide enough for ventilation and sit low enough to see out of from a bed or a desk. The front slope, which faces the road, is normally left alone, and that keeps the street elevation of the house looking as the neighbours expect.
Bungalow with a shallow loft
- Sun tunnels to hall and bathroom
- Limited height for a roof window
- Ceiling joists that carry the load
- Fall of the roof set by the trusses
Chalet or loft-room house
- Roof windows in the rear slope
- Headroom set by the ridge height
- Rafters trimmed for each opening
- Escape and stair rules under the Welsh regulations
Open ground above the Dee and what it means at the flashing
Ewloe stands on ground that climbs gently away from the Dee estuary towards Buckley, and the roofs near the top of that rise feel it. The house gables on the open plots face the prevailing weather past hedgerows and a few trees, so wind and rain from the south-west and west drive onto the roofs. Roofs on the higher plots carry that wind, and a rooflight that was fitted without enough care at the verge or the top of the flashing is the first place where it shows.
The effect on a rooflight is practical. Rain hits a west-facing roof window at a slant. Generous laps at the side flashings and a head apron that turns water out over the tiles below are what keep it out. We pay particular attention to the top edge, where wind-driven rain is pushed uphill under the tile course. A rooflight on a sheltered rear slope, with a hedge or a taller neighbour on the windward side, has an easier life.
Most coverings in Ewloe are tile, either clay or concrete, with natural slate on some of the older cottages and farm buildings. Each wants its own flashing. A cottage with stone walls and a slate roof often has a roof structure with irregular rafters set at uneven spacings, so the opening has to be drawn out on the roof after we have measured it from the inside, not taken from a catalogue. On a bungalow roof the rafters are typically lighter, with little height to play with, and we place the unit so that the trimmers sit on sound timber.
Lofts hold other obstacles. Water tanks in older houses, cabling for solar panels, extract fans from bathrooms and boiler flues all find their way into the roof, and each needs to be moved or avoided. Longer drives and open plots make access easier than in a terraced town, though a scaffold tower for a chalet bungalow's rear slope still needs level ground to stand on.
The work itself follows a fixed order, so the house is open to the weather for as short a time as possible. A fitted unit comes with a temporary weather cover for the opening, and the tiles are never lifted ahead of the point where the frame is ready to go in.
Protect and measure
Dust sheets go down in the room below, and the opening is marked out from inside.
Open the roof
A small patch of tiles is lifted, the rafters are trimmed to suit and the timber frame is set.
Fit and flash
The unit is fixed, the flashing is lapped into the tiles and the lining is finished to the room.
Flintshire's rules, which are not the English ones
A rooflight in Ewloe is subject to the Welsh regime. Flintshire County Council decides planning here, and the permitted development rules are the Welsh ones, which differ from the English set. The current conditions are published on gov.wales, and your roof is measured against them at the survey, not from memory. If your house sits in a conservation area or has been listed, the position changes again.
Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic environment service, oversees listed buildings in Wales, and a rooflight in one needs listed building consent. The Cadw website, cadw.gov.wales, explains how the system works. Ewloe has older buildings among its cottages and farmhouses, and if yours is one of them it is sensible to find out its status before you commission anything. Whether a building is listed or in a conservation area can be confirmed by Flintshire County Council at flintshire.gov.uk. On a protected roof the usual answer is a flush conservation unit, covered under flush units for protected roofs.
Building control in Ewloe is run by Flintshire County Council under the Welsh regime. We send the notification, and the guide to how the regulations reach a rooflight has the detail.
Flats and maisonettes need to be treated separately, because the permitted development rights that cover a house do not stretch to them. Planning officers in Flintshire can also ask for more detail on a roof that faces the street, so a photograph of the front elevation helps when we talk through the position. For a house, the checks that matter before the survey are few.
- Whether the house is listed, and whether the area has extra protection
- Which slope faces the road, and how visible it is
- Any covenants or estate rules in the title papers
- Whether the roof has been altered since the house was built
Rooflights in Ewloe, answered locally
Does Ewloe follow English or Welsh Building Regulations?
Ewloe is in Flintshire, so the Welsh version of the regulations applies, with Flintshire County Council's building control or a registered approver as the inspector. We send the notification and keep you informed along the way.
Our bungalow near Ewloe Green has a dark inner hall. Would a sun tunnel work, or do we need a roof window?
A sun tunnel is often the neater answer for a hall without an outside wall. Nothing structural needs framing, because the tube is fed by a small roof dome and ends in a ceiling diffuser after crossing the loft. We check the loft space, the roof pitch and any water tank at the survey before recommending it. If the roof is too deep or too shallow for a straight tube, a roof window in the nearest slope may work better, and we tell you so.
We live on one of the estates off the main road at Ewloe. Is that part of this page?
Ewloe Green, the older lanes and the estate streets around the A55 and A494 junction are all covered here. Whether the house is a cottage on a lane, a bungalow on an estate or a detached home on a corner plot, this page applies to it.
Our Ewloe house is on a corner plot with a hedge on the west side. Does that help a rooflight?
A hedge or a taller neighbour on the windward side takes some of the driven rain off a west-facing slope, so the flashing has an easier life there. The rear slope is also the one least seen from the road. We judge the exposure from the roof itself before choosing the position.
Who do I speak to about a listed cottage in Ewloe?
A listed cottage starts with listed building consent, and Cadw's guidance is the place to begin. We can supply product details for the application after looking over your roof.
Hope to the south, Bagillt up the estuary shore
Hope lies to the south and Bagillt along the estuary shore to the north-west, and both villages are linked below.
Free survey
Get a fixed quote in Ewloe
- No obligation
- We survey the roof before we price
- WhatsApp or phone, whichever suits
What happens next: we arrange a survey at a time that suits you, measure the roof and the room, then send a fixed written quote. Nothing is booked until you say yes.