Installing rooflights or skylights on hipped tile roofs and bungalows across Upton
Most roofs that rooflight installation in Upton deals with belong to 1930s Wirral semis and post-war bungalows, with a small older core by the village. The typical skylight goes into a hipped tile roof on open, flat ground, which means the covering and the loft come first.
7.8 road miles west of Liverpool city centre
Where in an Upton house does daylight simply stop?
- The village stairAround the village centre, an older cottage or short terrace whose stair rises against a party wall, leaving a narrow landing that only the roof above can brighten.
- The bungalow hallNear Arrowe Park a bungalow hall runs through the centre of the house, doors closed along both sides, and no window anywhere on its length.
- The rear kitchen-dinerA kitchen-diner built out behind a 1930s semi leaves the old back window staring at fresh brick, with the new room under a flat roof.
Village stairs, bungalow halls and kitchen-diners
Skylight installation in Upton follows its roofs, from cottages by the village to streets of 1930s semis, post-war bungalows and newer infill, each served by a different one.
- Roof lanternsA lantern over a kitchen-diner extension
- Flat roof rooflights
- Roof windows
- VELUX windowsDormer bungalows
- A lantern over a kitchen-diner extension, framed to the opening the joists allow and finished with an upstand that sheds water cleanly.
- Flat rooflights for the broad rear kitchen-diner roofs that were added to Upton semis, set between the existing joists on a raised kerb.
- Roof windows for hipped tile slopes on the interwar semis, positioned over where a bed or a desk will actually stand once the loft is boarded.
- Dormer bungalows, whose roof slope is the upper storey already, take VELUX and equivalent roof windows.
A village that filled up with semis and bungalows
Upton was farmland and a small village long after Birkenhead had filled up with terraces, and that late arrival explains its roofs. The older core sits around the village centre: brick cottages and short terraces under pitched slate or tile, some with the low eaves of buildings put up before anyone dreamed of a loft room.
The bulk of the district came in the twentieth century. Between the wars, builders laid out roads of semi-detached houses with hipped tile roofs, bay windows at the front and a staircase set centrally, away from any outside wall. After the Second World War, council and private estates added plainer pitched roofs, and bungalows spread across the ground near Arrowe Park. Small infill schemes and rear extensions came later, in every shape and age.
Many of the semis still have their original clay ridge tiles and a loft hatch on the landing, which tells us at a glance how the roof was framed and where the purlins are likely to sit. The result is a district of modest roof heights and generous floor plans. A hipped roof has a lot of floor under it but falls away on all four sides, so a roof window is placed by working out where a person will stand, not by where the rafters happen to be clear. In a chalet or dormer bungalow the roof is already the upper storey, and roof windows do the work that a wall of glazing would do in a house.
Extensions matter as much as the original houses. The usual rear kitchen-diner on a semi has a flat roof spanning most of the width, with joists running from the old back wall to the new one. The opening for a lantern or flat rooflight is cut between those joists, so their spacing and depth decide what size goes in, not the figure in a brochure.
On the interwar roads, loft conversions often have a dormer at the back already, which leaves the front slope free for a pair of roof windows and the landing below free for a stair. The older cottages have the opposite problem: a shallow loft, a ridge that barely clears a standing adult, and a rear slope that may be the only place a unit will fit at all.
| Where | Building | Rooflight that suits it |
|---|---|---|
| Village centre | Older cottage or short terrace | Roof window in the rear slope |
| Interwar roads | Hipped-roof semi | Loft roof windows, plus a tunnel for the landing |
| Around Arrowe Park | Post-war bungalow | Sun tunnel to the hall, roof windows in a converted loft |
| Rear extensions | Flat-roofed kitchen-diner | Lantern or flat rooflight |
| Newer infill | Tiled detached house | Opening roof window over the stair |
Level ground, tile roofs and very little shelter
Upton sits on the Wirral plain, and the plain is exactly that: low, level and spread out. No hill breaks the wind and no tight terrace shelters a slope, so each roof meets weather from every side, and the prevailing westerly runs across the peninsula almost unchecked. Bungalows are the most exposed of all, because their long, low roofs present a broad face to the rain and sit just above garden fences and hedges.
Concrete and clay tiles cover the district, and tiled roofs ask different things of a roof window from slate. The unit is set between battens, with a flashing kit that overlaps the tile profile on each side, and the tile lap above and below is where the water sheds. Interlocking concrete tiles are heavy and have deep profiles, so the side gutter has to match the profile or rain will find the gap. On a 1930s roof the tiles may be clay, now brittle and moss-covered, and a tile that cracks while being lifted is replaced from matching stock rather than left.
Underneath the tiles, the underlay is the real waterproofing, and on many interwar roofs it is old bitumen felt that has hardened. The opening gets a new collar and tray dressed over the felt, so any water that gets past the tiles is led out around the window rather than into the loft.
The flat extension roofs behave differently. Raising the kerb from the deck of a kitchen-diner roof keeps the glass above any film of water lying on the covering, which is built to a fall. We look at how the covering will meet the kerb before we propose the unit, because the join between the two is what keeps the room dry, and the work is set out in the written quote.
Access is easy by comparison with the terraced towns on the river. Wide roads and deep front gardens mean a tower, or a short scaffold on the drive, normally does the job. Bungalow roof spaces are often cut up by water tanks, old cabling and boarded storage, so we clear a route before measuring. The one catch is the bungalow loft, where a roof window may need ladder access through a hatch that was never meant for anything larger than a suitcase.
- Check the covering. Clay or concrete, and how the tile profile will meet a flashing.
- Open the underlay. Judge whether the old felt will take a new collar or needs a section of fresh membrane.
- Cut between rafters. Trim the opening to the unit with a doubled rafter above and below.
- Flash and relay. Fit the kit, lay the tiles back to the flashing and seal the head.
Wirral Council, a quiet planning map and a certificate at the end
Wirral Council, which also covers Birkenhead and the rest of the borough of Wirral, decides planning in Upton, and an ordinary suburban house is usually fine for a pitched-roof rooflight under permitted development. The permitted development rules for a skylight list the conditions, and at survey we measure your roof against them.
Upton is mostly housing of a kind that rarely carries special protection, so this page names no conservation area. A quick look at the maps on wirral.gov.uk is still sensible if your house is older, or looks older than the rest of its road. Consent comes before any cut in a listed building, and converted older properties split into flats or maisonettes lose permitted development altogether. A unit on the road-facing slope raises its own point, covered in when a front-slope window needs a second look. Should the map show a conservation area after all, the next steps for a protected street are set out separately.
Any rooflight here is notifiable work, and Wirral Council's building control receives the paperwork from us. When a loft is being converted at the same time, what the rooflight regulations cover on a Wirral semi extends to the stair and fire safety.
Escape is worth a note for bungalows and chalet bungalows. A bungalow roof normally sits low enough to meet the height Approved Document B allows, which lets a roof window act as the escape window for a bedroom in the roof. A two-storey semi is different, because a loft conversion there needs a protected stair and the roof window does not count as the escape route. That is settled at the survey, before a drawing is made.
Keep the paperwork for the job with the house papers, because a buyer's solicitor tends to ask for it.
- Single dwelling, or flat and maisonette
- Is it listed, or in a street the council has protected
- Does the slope face the road
- Is the loft being converted, or the rooflight just added
- Is there a bungalow loft room that needs an escape window
Hips, hatches and flat roofs around Upton
Our bungalow near Arrowe Park has a hall with no window. Is there a way to bring daylight down to it?
A sun tunnel will normally reach it. The roof carries only a small dome, and the tube runs through the loft space to a diffuser fitted in the hall ceiling, so the slope needs just a modest opening. We check the loft for ducts, wiring and the run of the rafters before choosing the tube and the route, then confirm the details in the fixed written quote. Bungalow lofts here are often shallow, so the diffuser is chosen to match the ceiling finish below.
We want two roof windows in our 1930s semi's loft. Does the hipped roof get in the way?
A hip changes where the windows sit, not whether they fit. The rear slope is normally the easier choice, as the front slope carries a planning question of its own. Headroom and rafter spacing are measured at survey, and the positions are marked out for you to see, and you approve them ahead of ordering.
Does this page cover Greasby, Woodchurch and Moreton as well as Upton?
This page deals with Upton itself, its bungalow estates, interwar roads and village core. Greasby and Moreton sit nearby on their own pages, because their housing and roofs differ from Upton's, and Woodchurch, to the south, is covered on our Birkenhead page.
Our Upton semi has a hip at each end and a very shallow loft. Is a roof window realistic?
A shallow loft under a hipped roof can still take a window on the rear slope, either to light a small loft room or, with a lined shaft through the loft, to bring daylight into the room below. The usual limit is headroom, so the survey records the height from the floor joists to the underside of the slope before any size is proposed.
Will a flat roof rooflight on our kitchen-diner leak where it meets the old felt?
It will not if the kerb is built up from the deck, with the covering taken up its face and tucked under the upstand cap; that join gets our first look. An old felt at the end of its life is renewed around the opening, because a new rooflight sealed into worn felt only moves the failure a few inches along the roof.
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Get a fixed quote in Upton
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- We survey the roof before we price
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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.