Fitting a rooflight or skylight to seafront villas and 1930s semis around Wallasey
Between the Mersey ferry landing at Seacombe and the dunes on the Irish Sea side, Wallasey is a town of 1930s semis, bay-fronted Victorian terraces and tall seafront villas. Salt, sand and slopes that take the wind full on shape every rooflight installation in Wallasey, and each skylight is flashed for the slope it goes into.
5.4 road miles west of Liverpool city centre
What keeps the heart of a Wallasey semi in the dark?
- The inter-war landingAlong the roads off Wallasey Village, a 1930s semi has a deep hall and a stair landing with one small side window, while the loft above holds a perfectly good place for a sun tunnel.
- The Egremont terrace atticUp in the attic of a tall Victorian terrace around Egremont and Liscard, a room with one gable window feels like a cupboard until a roof window opens the slope.
- The Leasowe extensionBehind a Leasowe house, a kitchen or utility room added under a flat roof long after the build stays dim all afternoon, and it wants glass overhead more than another lamp.
Inter-war landings, Egremont attics, Leasowe extensions
Wallasey runs from the Victorian terraces of Liscard and Egremont, past the inter-war semis of the Village, out to newer estates towards Leasowe; skylight installation in Wallasey has to suit each of those.
- Extended kitchens and utility rooms at the back of Leasowe and Village semis take a flat rooflight, raised on a kerb clear of salt-streaked standing water.
- Roof windows for Liscard and Egremont attics, set into slate or tile with flashing built to shed rain driven straight off the sea.
- VELUX and equivalent roof windows sized for the rafter spacing of a 1930s tiled roof, fitted from inside to keep the loft dry while the work goes on.
- Stairwell rooflights whose glass has misted inside after years of coastal weather get new sealed units.
A town that grew in layers between the ferry and the sea wall
Wallasey did not grow from a single centre. Wallasey Village, with its parish church, is the older core, and the town stretched out from there and from the river edge at Seacombe in stages. The ferry was a large part of why. People who worked across the Mersey wanted to live within easy reach of the boats, and builders put up streets of bay-fronted terraces in Seacombe, Egremont and Liscard to house them. These are brick houses under slate, tall for their width, with attics that were often left as storage and are now the first thing homeowners want to open up.
Between the wars the town spread inland and westwards. The inter-war semis that line the roads around the Village and along the railway make up much of the streetscape away from the seafront. Their roofs are hipped or gabled and tiled, the plans are deep, and the bays at the front leave a hall and landing running through the middle of the house with little light. The loft over each is usually generous, and the roof pitch is steady, which makes both a roof window and a sun tunnel straightforward choices. Where an owner has built a loft room already, the dormer is often the only source of daylight and the rest of the upper floor stays dark.
The Irish Sea side tells a different story. The low ground towards Leasowe, on the western edge of the town, has post-war council housing, later private estates and a good many bungalows. Down at Leasowe the roofs are lower and flatter than in the older streets. Plenty of houses there have added a flat-roofed kitchen at the back, which is where most rooflight enquiries begin.
Along the front of the town stand some of the tallest houses, large Victorian villas with three floors and deep roofs, many of them now divided into flats. Flats are covered by different planning rules from houses, and a rooflight over a flat that shares a roof with others usually needs the freeholder's agreement before anything else happens.
What this means for the roof in practice is easy to state. Terraces get a roof window cut cleanly into slate, and a semi takes either that or a sun tunnel. Extended back kitchens and utility rooms get a flat rooflight, or a lantern on a proper kerb. A bungalow in Leasowe sits somewhere between the two, since its loft is shallow but its pitched roof can take a roof window if the rafters allow, and the survey settles which.
| Area | Kind of house | Our usual answer |
|---|---|---|
| Seacombe | Brick terrace under slate | Roof window in the attic |
| Egremont and Liscard | Tall bay-fronted terrace | Roof window, with a flat light over the back kitchen |
| Wallasey Village | 1930s semi | Landing sun tunnel, or a loft roof window |
| Leasowe | Post-war house or bungalow | Lantern on a rear extension |
What a slope facing the Irish Sea asks of the flashing
Wallasey sits at the top corner of the Wirral, with the Mersey on one side and open water on the other, and there is very little standing between its roofs and the weather. Nothing slows the rain and wind coming in from the west and north-west over Liverpool Bay. On the dune side of the town the air also carries sand and salt, which gather on glass and in the joints of cheap flashing and leave a white crust on anything that is not rinsed by the rain.
That shapes the choices on a rooflight. A frame in coated aluminium or well-finished timber stands up to salt better than bare metal, and the seals and fixings need to be stainless or properly coated. The flashing around a roof window must lap the slates or tiles generously on the exposed side, because driven rain will find any short overlap. On a slope that faces the sea, we favour a slightly larger upstand and more generous soakers, so that the water has somewhere to go before it reaches the frame.
Flat roofs on the back of Leasowe and Village houses ask for a different kind of care. Many are old felt, with a slight fall and a few shallow dips where water has settled for years. A rooflight kerb has to sit on a sound deck, so the first job on a survey is to look at what is underneath, press the deck, and find out whether the roof is going to hold a new upstand or needs more preparation before the glass goes in.
Access in Wallasey is mostly kind. Thanks to driveways and side gates, a tower or ladder reaches most semi roofs without disturbing the street. The terraces are a different matter, with narrow frontages and sometimes steps to the door, and on those we often work from the inside, cutting the opening from the loft so that the slope stays covered until the unit is ready to drop in. On a three-storey villa near the front, scaffold is usually the safer route, and a licence from the council may be needed if the poles stand on the pavement.
Wind also affects when the work is done. A big pane of glass can catch a gust on a high exposed roof, and a roof open to the sky is not something to leave overnight. Jobs on exposed slopes are planned around the forecast and finished and sealed before the crew leaves each day.
- Survey the slope. We check the covering, the underlay and the rafters, and how salt has treated the metalwork already on the roof.
- Choose the frame and finish. A coastal slope gets a coated or stainless specification, picked to match the roof and the exposure.
- Open the roof in a controlled way. The opening is cut and the unit set in one visit, so no part of the house is left uncovered.
- Flash and test. The flashing is lapped for driven rain, and the finish inside is cleaned and left ready for paint.
Wirral Council, Building Control and what to check before ordering
Wirral Council is the authority for both planning and building control in Wallasey, and we handle the notification to it, as the regulations page for a coastal rooflight explains.
Planning is a separate question, and on most houses it is a simple one. Permitted development usually covers a rooflight on a house, and the limits on a Wirral roof are set out elsewhere, so we leave them out here. A flat in one of the old seafront villas is another matter, since flats and maisonettes lack those rights and the council must be asked first.
The streets that need more care are the protected ones. Wirral has designated conservation areas across the peninsula, and the council can say whether a given Wallasey road falls inside one. Standing in a conservation area is not enough, on its own, to take away the right to fit a rooflight. Article 4 directions added by some councils can, though, and a front slope in such an area gets a harder look than a rear one. The questions to put to the council about a protected street are worth reading first, and for front slopes in general the question of a roof window at the front is the place to start.
Listed buildings are different again. Before anything on the roof of a listed house is changed, the council must grant listed building consent, and the decision takes in the unit, its finish and its fixings. The national listing database is on the Historic England site, and checking it takes a minute.
The point of the survey is to find all this out before you commit. We look at the roof and check the council's planning pages for anything restricting the address, and the quote comes once that answer is clear. Nothing is ordered on a guess.
- House, flat or maisonette, as far as the address goes
- Conservation area or Article 4 direction on your road
- Whether the building is listed
- Which slope the rooflight will go on, front or rear
- Who will sign off the Building Control notification
Wallasey roofs, councils and the road from Liverpool
I live in a tall Victorian house near the front. Can the attic have a rooflight?
Where the house is a single dwelling and no restriction applies to the road, a roof window is the usual choice for a tall slated attic, with flashing built for the wind. Check conservation area and listing status first, and tell us if the house has been split into flats, because the rules differ.
What do you fit on the flat roofs of the older Leasowe extensions?
Whether a Leasowe extension suits a flat rooflight or a lantern depends on the room, and either one sits on a new upstand or kerb built onto a sound deck. We press the deck at the survey, and if the existing covering is not fit to carry a kerb, the quote says so plainly before any work.
Do you cover Seacombe and Liscard as well as Wallasey Village?
Every one of them is in range, since this page covers the whole town, from Seacombe on the river to Leasowe on the sea side, and the streets between them. For an address near the boundary, send it by WhatsApp and we will say.
What does salt air do to a rooflight on a house near the front?
Salt does more harm to bare metal and cheap seals than to glass, so near the front we specify coated or stainless fixings and a frame finish chosen for the exposure. Rain on a west-facing slope rinses the glass most of the time, and the flashing is lapped generously on the exposed side.
What do I have at the end of a Wallasey rooflight job?
Before work starts, Wirral Council or a registered approver is notified, and the certificate that follows is yours to keep with the house papers, together with the 10-year workmanship guarantee, which is also in writing.
New Brighton on the seafront, Birkenhead to the south
New Brighton holds the seafront at the river mouth, and the Birkenhead streets lie south along the Mersey.
Free survey
Get a fixed quote in Wallasey
- 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.