7.7 road miles west-north-west of Bournemouth
skylights & rooflights in creekmoor
BCP Council is the planning authority for Creekmoor, a Poole neighbourhood of estate roads bordered by Upton Heath and Upton Country Park, mostly estate houses with tiled roofs. We measure each loft with a tape and an inclinometer.
closes, cul-de-sacs and family roads
- Estate semis and terracesTiled gables with trussed roofs and lofts used for storage.
- Detached family homesGarage beside the house, loft above the landing.
- BungalowsSingle-storey roofs over inner halls.
- Added kitchens and conservatoriesFlat or low-pitched roofs on the back of the house.
the address check before any quote
- planning authority
- BCP Council
- original permission
- read the decision notice for the estate
- road miles
- 7.7
Nearby
since the estate went up
estate roofs that repeat and then do not
Streets of near-identical houses make Creekmoor look uniform from the pavement. The lofts behind the tiles are where the differences start.
How a Creekmoor survey runs, start to finish
Same rooflight, same house type next door, and still a fresh set of readings.
Creekmoor is a residential part of Poole, bordered by the Upton Heath nature reserve, with woodland on its western side, and by Upton Country Park. Most of what you see on its roads is estate housing, with newer infill, laid out in closes and short streets with garages and front drives. The tiles on a row of these houses look the same from the road. What lies under them is less predictable, as the loft of one house may have a water tank and the next an extension that was built over the original ridge.
Every Creekmoor visit therefore follows the same sequence, whatever the house next door has had done. The steps run in the order they happen on the day.
Access is the last thing the first visit settles. Most Creekmoor houses have a drive and a side gate, so a tower or ladder can reach the roof without closing a road. Closes and cul-de-sacs are tighter, and a delivery lorry may not turn. We record where the glass will be carried, how many people the lift needs and whether a neighbour's drive could be asked for, and the programme is written around that.
A roof window also needs a clear working area inside. The loft hatch on an estate house is commonly a plain square opening, and a window frame is larger than that, so it is brought through the roof opening itself rather than the hatch. Where the loft is boarded or packed with storage, some of it has to be moved, and we say so in advance.
Estate houses of this kind very commonly have trussed roofs. Each truss is a factory-made frame, and the gaps between them are fixed at manufacture. A window is chosen to fit a gap, since cutting a truss member needs an engineer's design and Building Regulations approval. A neighbour who had a window fitted last year may have had a different gap, a different pitch or a different structure, so their quote tells you little about yours.
From first visit to written survey sheet
- Look into the loftWe find the trusses or rafters, note any tank, flue, cable or boarding, and measure the spacing between members where the window is wanted.
- Measure the slope outsideThe pitch is read with an inclinometer on the slope itself, and the covering, battens and tile profile are noted for the flashing.
- Check the room belowCeiling height, the position of a stair or a landing, and where the light will fall are recorded, so the window sits over the right part of the room.
- Search the recordsWe read BCP Council's planning register for the address and the decision notice for the estate, and report the result in writing.
- Write it upYou receive the sheet with every reading on it, ready to compare with any other quote.
Original permissions and what they can carry
Estate houses are usually built under one planning permission, and a condition on it can reach every house.
A housing estate in Poole is usually built under a planning permission for the whole development. If that permission removed some householder rights, the removal applies to the houses it covers, and a single rooflight may need an application where an older house elsewhere would need none. We do not know what any individual Creekmoor estate says, so we do not guess. The decision notice is a public document and BCP Council's online planning register holds it.
The register also shows later applications for your own address. If a previous owner has had a loft converted, the plans will be on file. Their approved drawings are useful for a survey, because they show the roof structure the engineer designed for.
Conservation areas and listed buildings have their own maps, and BCP publishes the conservation boundaries online. Check the full address, not the street name. The planning guide has the permitted development conditions in full.
Building Regulations run alongside planning. Making a new opening in a roof means cutting or trimming timber, which is a structural alteration needing approval. Replacing a whole existing rooflight or roof window is notifiable too, while swapping only the sealed glass unit in a sound frame is not. Building control in Poole is handled by BCP Council or by a private registered approver of your choice.
There is one more document worth hunting for at home: the paperwork from the original purchase. If a loft was converted before you bought, the building control completion certificate and the structural drawings may be in the solicitor's pack. They tell us what the roof carries now, and they save a good deal of guesswork in a loft that has been altered more than once.
| Question | Where the answer is held |
|---|---|
| Conditions on the original permission | BCP Council planning register |
| Conservation area boundary | BCP Council conservation map |
| Whether the house is listed | Historic England online list |
| Past loft or extension work | Approved plans on the register |
| Building control history | BCP Council building control records |
Landings, bathrooms and boarded lofts
Rooms in the middle of an estate house are the ones that need borrowed light.
The standard estate layout puts the stair in the middle of the house, with a landing at the top and a bathroom or two bedrooms opening off it. A landing on an inner plan gets almost no daylight, so people walk through it with the lamp on. A roof window over the landing, with a lined shaft through the loft, floods the stairwell from above. The shaft has to run between trusses, and the survey checks that it can.
A smaller job is a bathroom with no window. A sun tunnel can feed it from the roof, but the tube needs a clear path between the tiles and the ceiling, which a boarded loft or a tank may block. Our VELUX installation page explains how the maker's standard sizes line up with common truss gaps. In the makers' codes a C is 55 cm wide and 04 is 98 cm high, which makes a CK04 style window a narrow one that suits a tight truss gap.
A loft conversion on a two-storey estate house changes the picture. Light for the new room is a matter of design, and the structure under it will already have been designed by an engineer or a loft-conversion specialist. A roof window is then positioned to suit that design, and we work from their drawings.
Orientation matters on an estate where the houses face one way. If a whole close faces south, the rear slopes all face north, and a roof window there gives even light without glare. The front slopes take the sun, so a roof window facing the road brings strong light and warmth, and a blind earns its place. We note the compass direction of each slope at the survey and talk through the effect on the room.
Ventilation is another reason people choose a window that opens. A bathroom or landing with a top-hung roof window can be left ajar for air, and an electric or remote-controlled model reaches a high ceiling without a pole. The opening rooflight page explains the options. An opening window helps to ventilate a room but is not a substitute for an extractor fan in a bathroom.
Where the owner has a loft that is fully boarded, we ask for the boards over the window position to be lifted before the visit, so the structure can be seen. We then replace them. It takes minutes and saves a second trip.
Extensions, garages and what owners assume
Creekmoor families have added rooms to the back and the side, and the beliefs that come with them are worth testing.
Kitchens extended at the back, garages converted to a study or a playroom, conservatories replaced with a solid roof: all of them need light from above, and all have flat or shallow roofs. A flat rooflight is the usual answer, and its kerb, fall and the existing covering all need checking.
Some beliefs recur when owners plan this kind of work. One is that a rooflight is simply fitted over an existing hole; another is that a larger pane will always lighten a room. The first is tested against what the survey finds.
Heat and glare matter on an extension with a big pane of glass above the seating. Options include opening vents, blinds and solar-control glass, covered on our page about energy-efficient rooflights. The survey records the existing roof build-up, so that the new unit meets the thermal figure for its type and fits what is already there. Nearby Broadstone and Upton have similar estate and extension roofs, and the same survey applies in each.
Garage conversions raise a particular question. The roof over a single garage is commonly a shallow pitched or flat roof with joists spanning the width, and the new room needs light from somewhere, since the old door is now a wall. A rooflight over the room works, but the joists run in one direction and the unit has to be sized between them. We record the joist depth and spacing and the insulation above or below the deck before choosing.
Conservatories converted to a solid roof are the other common case. A glazed conservatory roof is replaced with an insulated one, and a rooflight or lantern set into it keeps the daylight. The frame has to carry the extra weight of the new roof, which is for the person converting the conservatory to establish with the installer, and the lantern sits on a kerb formed in the new structure.
Myth
A new rooflight can just be set over the old opening.
The hole is there, the roof is flat, so the new unit goes straight onto the old frame or kerb and the job is done in an hour or two.
Fact
The new unit has to suit the kerb and the fall.
A kerb that is too low, out of level or built for another size has to be corrected. The survey measures the upstand height, the fall and the covering before a unit is ordered, so the size and the build-up are right first time.
faq
Creekmoor questions
My neighbour in Creekmoor had a roof window fitted. Can I copy their size?
Only a survey of your own loft can say. Truss gaps, pitch and loft contents differ between houses that look the same from the road.
Where do I find the conditions on my estate's original planning permission?
On BCP Council's planning register, which holds the decision notice for the original development. We read the same notice at the survey.
Can a sun tunnel light a windowless bathroom on an estate house?
Yes, if there is a clear path through the loft between the tiles and the ceiling. A boarded loft, a tank or a flue may need working around, so the tube run is measured first.