Rooflights and skylights in Wadhurst, high on the Wealden ridge

Wadhurst is a town and parish in Wealden District, East Sussex, and it sits high. The station is described as the highest in southern England, which tells you how far the ground rises before the tracks reach it.

The 2011 Census counted 4,883 people in the parish. That is a small place, with a historic centre and suburbs laid out later around it. Crawley is 26.7 road miles away, inside the thirty miles we cover, so a visit to a Wadhurst loft or flat roof is an ordinary survey for us.

Height matters for glazing in two plain ways. Rain arrives with more force on an exposed slope, and wind works on anything that stands proud of the roof. A skylight or rooflight that looked fine on a sheltered street can behave differently up here, so the flashing, the fixing and the glass build are chosen for the roof as it stands.

Wadhurst changed when the railway opened in 1851. The line, running from Charing Cross to Hastings, brought people who wanted to live in the country and work elsewhere, and the town grew outward.

The assessment records that expansion went into detached suburbs at Durgates and Sparrows Green, west of the historic centre and on the station side. Detached houses are useful for rooflight work because the roof is usually reachable on all sides, there is no party wall to respect, and a rear slope can often be opened without disturbing a neighbour.

A detached house from that period has its own questions. The roof may be steep, with a generous void, which suits a roof window and a loft room. It may also have been altered once or twice, so the structure we find is not always the structure a drawing suggests.

The assessment records that the most substantial twentieth-century redevelopment of the town centre followed a jet crash in 1956. The centre was rebuilt in the years after, so some of its buildings belong to that mid-century moment and not to the older streets around them.

We do not assume a construction type from a date. A building put up after the war can have a flat roof, a shallow pitch or a modest loft, and each of those leads to a different unit. A flat-roofed shop or flat above one wants a flat roof rooflight, and a shallow pitch can take a low-profile roof window if the rafter depth allows.

The guide to skylights in post-war homes explains what those buildings tend to share: thin insulation, light structures and ceilings that would benefit from more daylight. In a rebuilt centre, the survey establishes what the structure can carry and how the roof is built.

New rooflights and roof windows are controlled work under the Building Regulations. Part L covers thermal performance, so the glass and frame have to meet the limits for replaced or new openings. Part K covers falls and safe access, which matters for a rooflight set in a floor or roof you can walk on. Part F covers ventilation, and Part B covers fire spread and escape, including escape windows in a new loft room.

We install to current Building Regulations, and we handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable. The Building Regulations guide walks through each part, and the energy efficient rooflights page covers how the glass is chosen to meet them.

The work carries our ten-year workmanship guarantee, which is not insurance-backed, and the terms are on the guarantee page. For a general idea of what moves the cost of a job, see the costs page.