A rooflight or skylight for Moreton's bungalow hallways and boarded lofts
Moreton's roofs are mostly low and plain: inter-war and post-war semis, rows of bungalows and flat-roofed rear extensions, all on level ground close to the north Wirral shore. Rooflight installation in Moreton is largely a question of keeping a skylight watertight when the wind comes in flat off the sea.
8.6 road miles west of Liverpool city centre
What keeps a Moreton hallway dim all day?
- The bungalow hallwayNear Moreton Cross, a bungalow hallway runs down the centre of the house with no outer wall to borrow light from, though the roof space above is well placed for a sun tunnel.
- The extended semi kitchenThe back of a semi towards Meols, where a flat-roofed kitchen was built on and the old kitchen window now looks at a brick wall instead of the garden.
- The boarded Leasowe loftA Leasowe house with a loft boarded for storage years ago, deep enough for a roof window that would bring a landing and a spare room up to a usable standard.
Bungalow halls, semi kitchens and boarded lofts
Inter-war semis, long runs of bungalows, later estate houses and rear extensions of every age make up the roofs here, and skylight installation in Moreton follows what each of them needs.
- Lanterns give a rear extension a glazed ridge, sized to the joists already spanning the room and sealed against wind that arrives without any shelter.
- On the felt and single-ply roofs of semi extensions towards Meols and Leasowe, flat rooflights sit on a kerb high enough to shed water in a gale.
- Roof windows fit the tiled rear slopes of Moreton semis, turning a boarded loft into a bedroom or study with proper daylight and headroom.
- Clouded or leaking older plastic domes and early double-glazed rooflights over Moreton kitchens and bathrooms are swapped for modern replacement units.
A town of bungalows and semis on flat ground
Moreton sits on the north coast of the Wirral, between Leasowe and Meols, and the land under it is low and level. That one fact shapes the roofs. There are no hills to give a house a view over its neighbour, and the sea wall along the shore stands between the town and the water. Nearly all the housing dates from the twentieth century, apart from a few older brick houses near the centre.
The inter-war semi is the commonest house. Its hipped tiled roof covers two bedrooms and a box room, and the landing at the centre has no window. At the back, a flat-roofed kitchen or dining room has often been added, and that is the spot where flat rooflights and lanterns earn their keep. Bungalows are the other big group, in long rows along the roads off Pasture Road and across Leasowe. A bungalow has a roof space but no stair, which makes it a good candidate for a sun tunnel or, where the loft is tall enough, a conversion lit by roof windows.
Leasowe has a good deal of post-war housing, a mix of semis, short terraces and low blocks built when the area was developed after the war. The roofs are plain concrete tile or older clay, usually on a modest pitch. Some of the blocks are flats, which matters later on this page, because the rooflight rights that houses enjoy do not extend to flats.
Towards Meols the houses grow a little larger and the gardens deeper, and more of them have been extended into the loft or out to the rear. The same pattern repeats: a low pitched roof at the front, a bigger and more varied roof at the back, and a single point inside the house where daylight stops.
Because the pitches are shallow, the choice of unit matters. A roof window on a low slope needs the correct pivot and flashing kit, and some low roofs will not give enough headroom beneath a standard window. We check the pitch on the survey before we recommend anything.
Lofts across Moreton tend to be trussed or cut with a low ridge, and many carry a water tank or old insulation that has to be moved first. A conversion there can still work, but the floor is often the limit rather than the roof, so we look at what carries the room as well as what covers it.
| Area | The house | The rooflight |
|---|---|---|
| Around Moreton Cross | Inter-war semi | Loft window up top, flat unit behind |
| Off Pasture Road | Bungalow | Sun tunnel to the hall |
| Leasowe | Post-war semi or terrace | Roof window in the rear slope |
| Towards Meols | Larger extended semi | Lantern on the rear extension |
Liverpool Bay wind, spray and the flashing detail
Moreton has very little shelter. Wind comes in over the sea wall from the north and west across Liverpool Bay, and nothing taller than a hedge stands between the shore and the first row of houses. Rain is driven sideways, and in a hard blow the air carries a fine salty spray that dries on glass and metal. Houses nearest the shore take the most of it, and the effect thins out as you go inland towards the railway line.
For a rooflight, exposure like this changes the details. Water driven across a flat roof must not top the kerb, so the upstand under a flat rooflight is built tall enough to stop it. Aluminium frames with a powder-coated finish stand up well to salt, while untreated metal flashings corrode at the cut edges. On a pitched roof we choose flashings for the actual tile, because a kit made for plain tiles does not suit the deep profile of the interlocking concrete tiles that many Moreton semis wear.
The low pitch is the other half of the problem. Water drains slowly off a shallow roof, so any gap in a flashing has more time to let it in. We look closely at the top edge of a roof window, where the gutter flashing meets the slope, and at the back gutter of a flat-roof rooflight, where leaves and sand can build up.
Sand blows in with the spray, and it settles in places a rooflight owner rarely looks: the channel under a lantern ridge, the gap behind a kerb, the groove in a window's weather seal. A rinse with a hose and a soft brush once or twice a year keeps those clear, and we point out the spots at handover.
Access is rarely hard. Most Moreton houses are one or two storeys on wide plots, with a drive for the van and good ground for a tower, so a road licence is seldom needed. Bungalows are the easiest of all, since a short ladder reaches the eaves and the work in the loft is done from inside.
Extensions are where the surprises sit. A flat roof added in a different decade from the house may have its joists running the wrong way for the opening you want, or an upstand that was never built to take glass. We open up enough on the survey to see that before a quote is written. Where an old plastic dome is being replaced, the hole it leaves is often a different size from any current unit, and the kerb or trimming needs reworking to suit.
- Whether the tiles are interlocking concrete or plain clay, because the flashing kit differs
- The height of any existing upstand against how high spray and standing water reach
- Which way the joists run in a flat-roofed rear extension
- Loft headroom under a low pitch, measured at the point the window would sit
- How the roof drains, and whether gutters at the opening clog with sand and leaves
Planning in Moreton and the Building Control notice
Wirral Council handles both planning and building control for Moreton. Moreton itself has no named conservation area, the protected streets on this stretch of the Wirral lying elsewhere, and the ordinary semi or bungalow here carries no special designation. A property can still be listed or sit under an Article 4 direction, and a short check with the council settles that for any address.
A rooflight in the rear slope of most houses is permitted development, within limits on projection, height and side-facing slopes. Those limits are laid out in full under permitted development for skylights, so they are not repeated here. Flat owners, who have no such rights, and anyone in a listed building, where listed building consent is a separate application, should read them with care.
Wirral Council's building control team, reached through wirral.gov.uk, receives our notification for the job, and what the Building Regulations ask of a rooflight is set out separately.
Replacement roof windows in an existing dwelling are held to 1.4 W/m²K or Window Energy Rating band B under Approved Document L, volume 1, Table 4.2, and rooflights to 2.2 W/m²K; we specify to those figures as a matter of course.
In a bungalow loft bedroom the roof window can count as the escape window, provided the openable area and height meet Approved Document B. A two-storey house cannot do this; it needs a protected stair, which reshapes the whole conversion.
- Survey A visit to measure the roof and the room under it, with the pitch and covering checked.
- Price You get one figure on paper before we place an order.
- Notification We notify building control where the work needs it.
- Fitting The unit goes in, with dust sheets down and the house left clean.
- Sign-off The council or approver passes the work, and the written ten-year guarantee follows.
Moreton homeowners ask about roofs, routes and sign-off
Can a sun tunnel light the hallway of a bungalow in Moreton?
Above a bungalow hall the loft is open space, which lets a sun tunnel run from a small roof dome straight down to a ceiling diffuser. We check the pitch, the position of the roof timbers and the length of the run on the survey.
Do you cover Leasowe and Meols as well as Moreton?
This page covers Moreton, Leasowe and the roads towards Meols, and we work further across the Wirral too. The housing is similar, mostly semis and bungalows, and the same exposure applies along the north shore.
Our Leasowe house has a boarded loft with a water tank in it. Can that become a room with a roof window?
Boarded lofts like that are common across Leasowe, and the tank and old insulation have to be moved out of the way first. Whether the room works depends on the floor as much as the roof, so we check what carries the boards, the headroom under the pitch and the position of the stair before a window is specified. Where the pitch is low, a longer top flashing is allowed for.
My semi has a flat-roofed kitchen extension. What goes in it?
Either a roof lantern or a flat rooflight suits a semi's kitchen extension, and the light and height you want decide which. The final choice comes down to the joists and the upstand, and the survey tells us whether the existing roof can carry the new unit without being rebuilt.
Does salt spray from the shore damage rooflight frames in Moreton?
Powder-coated aluminium frames stand up to it well, while untreated metal flashings corrode first at the cut edges. Houses nearest the sea wall get the most spray and the effect thins out inland towards the railway, so we choose finishes by how close the street is to the shore. Sand and salt also gather in the back gutter of a flat rooflight, which is why that detail is checked at the end of the job.
Free survey
Get a fixed quote in Moreton
- 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.