Skylights and rooflights for Coundon houses and flats
Coundon is an old mining village in County Durham, 27.8 road miles south of Newcastle. We read your house before we recommend a rooflight, because a house and a flat reach the same skylight by two different routes.
An old village, with rooms that need modern daylight
Coundon has a long past. The Boldon Book records a mine here in the twelfth century, and the village was once its own civil parish. A past that old says little about a particular roof, though. What matters today is a dim room: a landing, a back bedroom, a kitchen at the end of the house. Glass in the roof can reach it, and the kind of home you own settles how permission works.
The rooflights on offer to Coundon householders
Look through the products, then tell us about your house and we will say which one belongs on it. Roof lanterns, Flat roof rooflights, Roof windows, VELUX windows, Electric rooflights, Energy efficient rooflights, Misted rooflight replacement, Walk-on rooflights, Conservation rooflights, Sun tunnels.
Coundon homes
The house, the visit, the glass and the permission
This long read follows a Coundon job in order. It begins with the village and the homes in it, goes through the survey, moves on to choosing glass for a room, and finishes on planning, where a house and a flat part company.
What do I need to know about Coundon before we talk rooflights?
Short answer
Coundon is an old mining village and a former civil parish in County Durham, within Durham County Council. What we need to know is not its history but your own house: whole or divided into flats, what covers the room and who owns the roof.
Coundon is a village in County Durham, a former civil parish with a mining history that reaches back to the twelfth century. Its name appears in the old records as Cunadun, which may mean a cow's hill, though that reading is not certain. All of that is pleasant background. None of it tells us what is above your landing.
What we ask instead
The village name tells us nothing certain about the house, so we never fill in the blanks ourselves. A short list of questions does the job. Is it a whole house or a flat? Is the roof pitched or flat? What room do you want lit, and what lies above its ceiling? Have you extended the house, and what covers the extension?
Whole houses and divided ones
Photographs are welcome with your first message, though we still come and see for ourselves.
This is the first fork in the road for any rooflight job, and the rest of the page takes each branch in turn.
If the building is a house that you own, you make the decision about the roof, subject to the rules at the end of this page. Where the building has been divided into flats, and you live in one of them, the decision may be shared. Lease or title will say whose the roof is, and whose the void beneath it. Study the paper, and have a word with any other owner well ahead of ordering.
Why no price comes before the visit
Two neighbours may want an identical rooflight yet receive different quotes, because only a visit reveals the reasons. The band below lists what pushes a price down or up. The costs page has the wider picture.
What nudges a Coundon figure
Keeps it lower
- A fixed rooflight rather than one that opens
- A standard size sitting between existing timbers
- A roof reached from one safe position
- One opening in one visit
Pushes it higher
- A big lantern, or any opening wide enough to need a new timber frame
- Motorised opening, sensors or powered blinds
- A difficult approach for materials
- Extra interior finishing around the opening
We name no sum until the roof has been looked at. The written quote then pins the price to the job as described.
What does the survey at a Coundon address involve?
Short answer
Our visit covers the roof seen from outside and from inside: finish, slope, framing and the way onto it. The visit costs nothing. A fixed quote arrives on paper afterwards, spelling out the product, glass and labour.
The survey exists so that the quote can be honest. We would rather spend half an hour looking at your roof than guess at it from a photograph and revise the price later.
The outside
We start in the road or garden, reading the roof as a whole: slope, ridge, which way each face points, and what it is covered with. Chimneys, dormers and any wall that shades part of the roof get noted. A flat roof gets a closer study of its finish, its edges and any upstand already there.
The inside
This is the longer part, because the inside of the roof holds most of the answers: how the timbers were laid, whether anything has been added since and what stands in the way of an opening.
Indoors, we stand in the room you want lit and work out what sits over it. Given a loft, one of us goes up to study the rafters at close range. Trussed rafters are engineered as a single frame, so cutting one needs a designed opening, and the survey tells us which kind you have. We also note the insulation and where the wiring runs.
Getting to the roof
We walk the route to the roof, so we can judge how materials get up there and how the work is staged. Mention at the start if the approach is tight, shared or steep.
For a flat, the lease
If your home is a flat, we ask you about the lease, because ownership of the roof decides who can agree to the work. We do not give legal advice. We tell you what to look for, and you or your solicitor read it.
The written quote
You will not be asked to decide in front of us. The quote is yours to read at a kitchen table, to compare with anything else you have been given, and to question by message if a line is unclear.
A fixed quote then reaches you in writing. The make, the dimensions, the glass and the labour are itemised, and the total is unchanged unless the work itself changes. When you are ready to begin, the quote page takes the address and the room.
Which rooflight suits the room I want to light in Coundon?
Short answer
Loft rooms under a slope take roof windows. Shut-in landings and bathrooms with a loft over them take sun tunnels. Flat extension roofs are the place for flat rooflights or lanterns. Permission then runs one way for a house and another for a flat.
Start with the room, then let the roof choose the product. Four pairings of room and roof are worth knowing.
Loft bedroom or study
Think first about where the furniture will stand, since the glass should light the part of the room people use. A room under the slope wants a roof window. Set flush with the tiles, it lights the floor from overhead and can open for air. Manufacturers print a short size code. With SK06, the SK part encodes the width and the 06 part encodes the height. You can compare the ways these windows open on the roof windows page.
Landing or bathroom with a loft above
A closed-in space can exist in a house of any age. A stairwell hemmed in by bedroom doors never had a window, and nor did a bathroom sitting at the heart of the plan. Daylight from the roof is the remedy.
A sun tunnel takes a small dome on the roof and a mirrored tube through the loft down to a diffuser in the ceiling. It brightens a closed-in space without the structure a full window needs. See the sun tunnels page.
Kitchen or dining room under a flat deck
Behind the house, a flat-roofed addition has space for a shallow rooflight, or for a lantern when the room is generous. The glass stands on a kerb, called an upstand, that lifts it clear of the finished roof, and we work out its height on the visit. Either rests on an upstand above the finished roof.
What the route to permission looks like
A house owner can usually proceed without applying, since most rooflights on houses fall under permitted development within set limits. Owners of flats must have planning permission from Durham County Council, and they need it before ordering. A listed house needs listed building consent. The final chapter takes that further.
Match the room to the glass
- Write down the dim room, then what is directly above its ceiling
- Decide whether you also want fresh air from the unit
- Check whether the roof is slope or flat deck
- Confirm whether the home is a whole house or a flat
- Ask what size the framing allows before falling for a large unit
Will I have to apply for permission to put a rooflight in my Coundon home?
Short answer
On a house, usually not: most rooflights fall under permitted development within set limits, set out in our planning guide. On a flat, yes, from Durham County Council. A listed house needs listed building consent. Building Control is notified in every case where the work is notifiable.
Planning comes last on this page because the answer depends on everything before it: house or flat, product and roof.
A house
Most rooflights on houses fall under permitted development within set limits, so no application is needed. The rules and their exceptions are laid out in our planning guide. Conditions on a previous permission, or a direction issued by the council, may remove those rights. If you suspect either on your street, ask Durham County Council before you order.
A flat
Flats and maisonettes have no householder permitted development. Whether you hold the upper flat or the lower one, a new rooflight means an application to Durham County Council for planning permission. Apply first, order afterwards. The lease deserves a read at the same time, since it shows whose roof it is and whether anyone else must agree.
A listed house
A listed house keeps its planning rights, yet almost any rooflight on it needs listed building consent, and that consent decides the job. Start with the council in that case, and bring the survey notes with you, because the consent process will want to know the exact size, the position and the type of rooflight proposed. A conservation-style rooflight, set low and slim, is the kind of unit usually discussed for such a house. Our conservation rooflights page describes it.
Building Control
Cutting an opening in a roof is building work. It is notified to Building Control, either the local authority or a registered building control approver. You do not chase the notification yourself: we make it whenever the work needs one. Our workmanship also carries a guarantee, written down, that lasts ten years. Its terms are on the guarantee page.
People in Bishop Auckland and Spennymoor ask the same things.
What Coundon householders sort out before booking
Is Coundon a town or a village?
Coundon is a village. It is an old mining village and former civil parish in County Durham. Planning questions for your address go to Durham County Council.
I rent a flat in Coundon. Can I have a skylight put in?
A tenant should speak to the owner first, and the lease says whose roof it is. Pass our details to your landlord and we will explain what the survey involves.
What if my loft has trussed rafters?
Trussed rafters are designed as one frame, so an opening usually needs a designed solution. The survey shows which kind your roof has, and we say what the opening will involve before you accept the quote.
Can one visit cover several rooms?
Yes. Tell us each room when you book and we look at each roof above them. Pitched and flat roofs are quoted separately, so you may do one part now and another later.
How soon do I get the quote after the survey?
The quote comes in writing after the visit, with no pressure to reply at once. It lists make, size, glass and labour so the fixed figure is easy to read, and it moves only if you change what you ask for.