Harpenden walled-in plots and extensions want a skylight or rooflight
A Hertfordshire town that grew with the railway and the sale of farmland, now full of extended houses and tight plots. Walls close in at the side, which is why light from straight up matters here.
Railway-age villas and the extended family house
In Hertfordshire, Harpenden answers to St Albans City and District Council, and it is 27.1 road miles from our base in Milton Keynes. The town lies across two valleys, a dry one holding the centre and the common, and the valley of the River Lea to the north-east. What stands on the slopes was mostly settled after the Midland Railway arrived in 1868 and farms were sold for building from the 1880s. Two kinds of home are worth describing, because they ask for quite different things from a roof.
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Houses from the railway and farm-sale years
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Extended homes on walled-in plots
When the main line came, Harpenden turned from a farming village into a place people could live and still reach London. The streets that followed are lined with substantial houses, villas with steep roofs, tall chimneys and gardens that have long since matured. Many carry slate or clay tile, and the loft rooms can run deep. In a bedroom or study, a roof window in the rear slope does the work; on a street within the town's conservation area, a slim conservation rooflight leaves the roofline calm. We check the covering and the rafters at the survey, because an older roof can hold surprises.
Property in Harpenden is expensive, and owners extend rather than move. The result is a rear or side extension, sometimes two, with a flat or low-pitched roof and a kitchen that is large on the plan and dark in the middle. Neighbouring walls, garden boundaries and the house itself shut the side windows in. Overhead, where the boundary has no say, a flat rooflight or roof lantern takes daylight straight from the sky. The extension keeps its garden doors, and the plan keeps its space.
Three Harpenden rooms with a wall in the way
A new kitchen with a wall outside the window
A generous room that borrows its daylight from one end.
Sideways
Harpenden families extend sideways and backwards, and the kitchen is the room that grows. The new space is wide and deep, with an island, a long run of units and a dining end by the garden doors. The side window, though, looks at the boundary wall of the house next door, a tall brick face a short distance away.
Light comes in from the doors and nowhere else. The island, where the cooking and homework and conversation happen, sits half way down the room under a pair of downlights switched on at lunchtime.
Straight up
A flat rooflight over the island changes the room at its centre. It faces the sky, not the wall, so the brick has no effect on it. In a room of this depth, a long rooflight, or two in a line, carries daylight from the doors to the back wall, set on an insulated upstand with the glass at a slight fall for the rain. Straight up is clear, whatever the neighbour has built.
For a higher ceiling or a room with a bolder shape, a roof lantern adds height. It lifts the light above the wall and lets it fall at several angles. We can set out both options and show where each would sit on your plan.
Photographs of the extension help, but nothing beats standing in the room. At the survey we look up at the ceiling, work out where the joists run and see whether there is a beam in the way. The opening goes where the structure allows it and the light does most good. Your price then arrives in writing and is fixed.
Inside, the finish round the opening is ours to do. The plaster is made good and the paint is left tidy, so the new light looks as though it was always part of the room.
Verdict: for a deep Harpenden kitchen with a boundary wall at its side, a flat rooflight over the island gives the whole room an even, daytime light.
An extension that is bright at one end only
Glazed doors help the garden end and nothing else.
Sideways
An extension can be designed around a single run of glazed doors. They look wonderful from the garden. Inside, the light falls off quickly as you walk away from them, and the part of the room next to the old house is dim from morning to evening. A tall wall on one side, either the old house or a neighbour's gable, takes away whatever the doors could not reach.
People end up using the glazed end and treating the rest as a corridor. The floor area is paid for, yet only a part of it is enjoyed.
Straight up
A rooflight, or a row of them, set towards the back of the extension brings daylight into the zone the doors cannot reach. It looks straight up, so the wall at the side has nothing to block. A lantern gives the room a feature and a second source of light from several directions. A series of flat panes keeps the roofline low and neat, which can matter if a neighbour's windows look down on the roof.
The light moves round the room through the day, so the floor finish and the paint take on a different mood from morning to afternoon. That movement is part of what a room lit from above gives you.
If you are planning an extension that has not been built yet, bring us in early. Placing the opening in the drawings costs little, and it is much easier than cutting it in afterwards. If the extension is already finished, we work with what is there.
Roof words you will hear at a Harpenden survey
Upstand
The short raised kerb round a flat roof opening that the rooflight rests on.
Lantern
A raised glazed roof feature with sloping sides that lets light in from several directions.
Ridge
The horizontal line along the top of a pitched roof where the two slopes meet.
Article 4 direction
An order made by the council withdrawing certain permitted development rights across a set area.
Joist
A horizontal timber that carries a flat roof or a floor.
Flashing
Strips of metal worked under the roof covering to keep rain out of the gap round the frame.
A hallway between two tall walls
The part of the house everyone passes through, and the dimmest.
Sideways
The larger houses in the town have a generous hall and a tall stair. They also have a landing window that looks at the flank wall of the house next door, a few metres away. The glass is handsome, and the wall behind it is a flat brick panel.
Daylight in the hall comes through the front door and nothing else. Even at midday the stair gets a grey, borrowed glow, and everyone presses the switch on the way in.
Straight up
A roof window above the stairwell lets light fall down the full height of the house. The wall beside the landing cannot block a window that looks upward, and the daylight reaches the hall floor on a clear day. Where there is no spare slope above the stairs, a sun tunnel is an alternative, with a dome on the roof and a reflective tube down to a ceiling diffuser.
Older houses call for a gentle hand. If your street is inside the town's conservation area, the slope that faces the road is not the place for a large frame. A rear slope or a slim conservation-pattern unit keeps the street scene as it was.
We check head height at the top of the stair first, then the loft space above, then the line of the rafters. These three things decide where the opening can go and how large it can be. It is easier to change a drawing at the survey than a ceiling once the plaster has been cut.
Two energy numbers we build to in Harpenden
- 1.4 W/m²K
- ceiling for a roof window in an existing house under Part L, Table 4.2, or WER band B
- 2.2 W/m²K
- ceiling for a rooflight in an existing house under the same table
Planning under St Albans City and District Council
Harpenden is a civil parish in the district of St Albans, so planning decisions come from St Albans City and District Council, with Harpenden Town Council and Hertfordshire County Council sitting alongside it in local government. The council lists a Harpenden conservation area among its conservation areas. The council confirms which streets lie inside it. The line on the map is for the council to confirm, and living inside it does not take the permitted development right for rooflights away by itself, although an Article 4 direction can.
Our planning guide lists the conditions attached to permitted development. The council's planning and building control pages let you check your own house, and our planning guide explains the rules in full. A listed building has its own consent route; if you cannot tell whether yours is on the list, put that to the planning team.
Building Regulations run alongside. We make the Building Control notification when the work needs one, and the installation meets the rules as they stand. The council's building control page describes the process.
The journey to Harpenden for a survey
The run to Harpenden heads south-east out of Milton Keynes for 27.1 road miles, which is roughly 33 minutes at the wheel. The town has a long link with the railway, and its station on the Midland main line still serves it. For us the road is what counts, and it is a manageable run for a survey in a morning or an afternoon.
Close by are Redbourn and Markyate, and the larger town of Luton lies to the north. If your house sits nearer to one of those, its page may be a better fit. Fitting one rooflight occupies a day or two, so the house is not taken over by the job.
Choosing between roof window, rooflight and lantern here
Match the product to the roof you have. On a pitched roof of tile or slate, choose a roof window that sits in the slope. A flat or low-pitched extension roof takes a flat rooflight on an upstand. A raised, taller space is a case for a roof lantern. A hallway or bathroom with no direct roof above wants a sun tunnel. Where the conservation area is in play, the conservation rooflight is slimmer and sits lower.
If your plot is overlooked, a rooflight on a flat roof faces the sky rather than the neighbours, and obscured or frosted glass can be specified where a window would look straight into a bedroom. We talk through glazing, opening and finish at the survey, and put the choices in the written quote.
Fresh air matters in a glazed room, so ask about electric opening rooflights. A wall switch or a remote opens them, which helps where the ceiling is too high to reach.
How a Harpenden survey runs
The survey costs nothing, and it starts in the room itself. We stand where you will sit, look up and talk about what you want to see. Next comes the loft, or the roof itself, where we check the structure, the covering and how the rafters or joists run, taking measurements and photographs as we go.
The fixed written quote that arrives afterwards stays the same on the day. Once the opening is made the inside is finished tidily, and a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing covers the job. You can message us on WhatsApp at 07880 284133, write to info@vertexskylightsmiltonkeynes.co.uk, or fill in the enquiry form. Give us the room and the street, and a time will follow. We work in homes first, and we take on small commercial work too.
Harpenden homeowners ask
Will a tall neighbouring wall stop a rooflight working?
No. The wall beside the house shades the side window, while the sky above the roof lies beyond its reach. A rooflight or roof window looks straight up, so the brick has little effect on it. Where the wall is very close and very tall, we choose the position with the clearest patch of sky.
Is a Harpenden villa or extended house inside a conservation area?
St Albans City and District Council lists one for Harpenden. The council's map shows the boundary. Whether your street is inside, and whether an Article 4 direction applies, is a question for its planning team. If it is, a slim conservation rooflight is worth a look.
Can you put a rooflight into an extension that is already built?
Yes, the roof can take it once we have checked it. We look at the joists, the insulation and the roof covering at the survey, and the opening is placed to suit the structure. The inside is made good afterwards, with plaster and paint left tidy round the new frame.
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