16.9 road miles east of Bournemouth
skylights & rooflights in pennington
Houses of several periods stand along Milford Road, the lanes of Lower Pennington and the streets that meet Lymington, and tape readings are taken on each Pennington roof.
three eras of roof in one village
- 1930s semisHipped tile roofs, deep lofts, rafters cut on site.
- Post-war bungalowsSingle-storey plans with a hall that never sees daylight.
- Newer estate homesTrussed roofs, modern tile, conditions on the permission.
- Rear extensionsKitchen and garden-room roofs that take a flat rooflight.
which authority covers your Pennington address
- planning authority
- New Forest District Council
- planning authority
- district or National Park: check
- road miles
- 16.9
Nearby
upper and lower pennington
one village, two planning bodies
The main village streets fall to New Forest District Council, but Pennington Common is part of the New Forest National Park. An address near the Common can answer to a different authority from one a few hundred metres away.
Working out who to ask about a Pennington roof
The first job on any survey is placing the address on the right side of a boundary.
Pennington runs into Lymington along Milford Road and the lanes leading off it, and the two places share a town council. For planning, though, the village is split. The main village streets are covered by New Forest District Council. Pennington Common and Pennington Marshes fall within the national park boundary, and for any address inside that boundary the park authority handles planning applications. The two bodies publish their own application registers, so an old decision on your street can be on either one.
Lymington has conservation areas of its own, and the edge of Pennington sits close to them. That does not mean a Pennington address is inside one, and it does not mean it is outside one. The answer comes from the council's boundary map for the exact address. Our planning guide explains the permitted development rules in full, and the local checks come before any of them.
A newer house has one extra check. If the estate was built within the last few decades, the original planning permission may carry conditions, and a condition can remove rights that an older house of the same shape would still have. Reading the decision notice for your house takes a few minutes and avoids a wasted quote.
The village is spoken of as Upper and Lower Pennington, and we treat both as one survey area. Plot size varies from street to street, so access is looked at house by house: a long back garden gives room to stage materials at the rear, while a house on a tight road may need a tower set where parked cars allow.
Placing a Pennington address before anything is ordered
- Find the boundaryCheck the full address against the boundary the Park Authority publishes. Inside the line, the Park Authority handles planning; outside it, the district council does.
- Look for conservation and listingCheck whether the address falls inside a conservation area, and search Historic England's online list for the house itself.
- Read the planning historyOpen the register of whichever body covers the address and find the permission for the house. Note any condition that mentions windows or roofs.
- Ask for the check at surveyWe repeat these searches before quoting and record what they show in the written survey. An application, if one is needed, goes to the Park Authority or the district council, depending on the boundary.
Hipped roofs and deep lofts on the 1930s streets
Interwar semis give the most room to work with, and the roof is where that room is.
Pennington grew through the twentieth century, and a 1930s semi-detached house of the kind found on older roads in the area typically has a hipped roof with a generous loft inside. The rafters were cut and fixed on site rather than delivered as frames, so there is nothing to stop a window being fitted in the slope once the structure is trimmed correctly. Many lofts are tall enough to stand in near the ridge, which is why they are the usual candidates for a bedroom or home office.
The slope matters as much as the loft. A hipped roof has four slopes, and the one facing the street, the one facing the garden and the two short ends each give different light. A VELUX roof window on the garden side keeps the front elevation unchanged, which some owners prefer. On the street side it can look right if it lines up with the windows below. Both positions are measured at the survey and the sheet records the pitch of each slope.
Inside the loft the rafters tell their own story. On many interwar houses the roof also has a purlin running across the slope, a horizontal timber that carries the rafters part way up. A window that lands on a purlin needs a different trimming plan from one that sits clear of it, and moving a window up or down the slope by a hand's width can avoid the problem. Cutting is planned once, on paper, with the tape readings in front of us.
The readings on a roof like this are examples, since every roof is read on the day, and the sheet that comes back to you lists your own numbers.
Newer homes and the idea that nothing can be done to them
A trussed roof has limits, but those limits are specific and can be worked with.
Newer houses in and around Pennington are built differently from the interwar ones. They are made from factory trusses: triangular frames set at regular spacing, each one carrying its share of the load. A truss is not cut on site to suit a window. This leads to a common belief that a newer house cannot take a roof window at all.
In practice the answer depends on the gap between the trusses and the size of window that fits within it. Where the gap is wide enough, a window sits between two trusses and nothing structural is touched. A wider window needs a design from a structural engineer, which goes through Building Regulations before work begins. A sun tunnel needs a far smaller opening and often passes between trusses without trouble, which makes it popular for an upstairs landing or a bathroom.
Then there is the planning side. A condition on the original permission for the estate can restrict alterations to the roof, and flats and maisonettes have no householder rights at all. We check both at the survey and put the result in writing.
Myth
A newer house cannot have a roof window
Trussed roofs are sometimes written off because trusses cannot be cut. People assume the answer is no before anyone has measured the gap.
Fact
The gap between trusses sets the size
A window narrower than the gap fits between two trusses. Anything wider needs structural design work and Building Regulations approval first, and any condition on the permission is checked before either.
Energy figures and size codes for a Pennington loft room
Three numbers cover most of what a homeowner needs to compare quotes.
When an existing home gets a new rooflight, Part L of the Building Regulations sets a thermal target for it, and a new roof window has a slightly different one. Any quote you receive should state the figure for the glass it proposes, and the survey sheet leaves a line for it so the numbers can be set side by side. The rating is read from the maker's data sheet for the exact unit, and a different glazing option on the same frame can give a different figure.
In a VELUX code the opening letter stands for width and the number for height, so MK04 means a window 78 cm across and 98 cm tall. A code is only useful once it has been matched to the real gap between rafters or trusses, which is the reason we measure before naming one. A narrower code, such as the C width at 55 cm, can sit between rafters without any cutting where the gap allows it.
If a loft room is the aim, the escape route matters. On a two-storey house a roof window cannot serve as the way out of a room in the loft, and a protected stair is needed instead. Lymington and Hordle, close by, have the same mix of housing, so these questions come up on both sides of the village.
Glass choices follow from the room. A bedroom under a south-facing slope may want a blind and a solar control pane. A landing needs maximum light and little else. An opening window helps with air movement in a hot loft room, and an electric opener is worth a look when the window sits out of reach, as on a high landing; the electric and opening rooflights page covers the options.
- what a new rooflight must reach when it goes into an existing house
- 2.2 W/m²K
- target for a new roof window, or Window Energy Rating Band B
- 1.4 W/m²K
- a window 78 cm across and 98 cm tall
- MK04
The rooms that ask for daylight first
Hallways and bathrooms, kitchens and landings: the same few spaces come up again and again.
Requests from Pennington homes tend to start with one room rather than with a product. A bungalow hall with doors on every side. A landing with no window, at the top of a staircase on a 1930s semi. A kitchen that was extended into the garden and now has a middle that daylight does not reach.
Where the room is directly under a pitched slope, a roof window brings the most light and opens for air. Where there is loft above it but the room is not under a slope, a sun tunnel does the job with a small opening. Under a flat extension roof, the usual choice is a flat rooflight set on a kerb, and a roof lantern suits a larger space where a feature is wanted.
Every option is priced from the numbers on the survey sheet, which is the same sheet whichever product you choose. That keeps comparison easy if you ask for other quotes. Older houses sometimes carry a rooflight from an earlier alteration, and where that glass has misted the first question is whether the frame can stay or whether the whole unit comes out. The survey records the frame size so both routes can be priced.
| Room | Usual option | Measured at survey |
|---|---|---|
| Bungalow hallway | Sun tunnel or roof window | Loft depth, route for the tube |
| Upstairs landing | Sun tunnel | Gap between trusses or rafters |
| Loft bedroom | Roof window | Pitch, headroom, escape rules |
| Extended kitchen | Flat rooflight | Kerb height, fall, covering |
| Large garden room | Roof lantern | Opening size, support, roof type |
faq
Pennington owners, and what they want to know
Is my Pennington house inside the National Park?
Pennington Common and Pennington Marshes are inside the Park. The main village streets fall to the district council. Check the full address on both maps, or ask us to check it at the survey.
Can a 1930s semi take a roof window in the front slope?
Often there is room, since the rafters were cut on site and can be trimmed. The planning rules for a front slope depend on the address, so we check them before quoting.
My house is on a newer estate. Does a trussed roof rule out a window?
It limits the width, not the possibility. A window that fits the gap between two trusses can go in, and a wider one needs an engineer's design first.
Would a sun tunnel suit my upstairs landing?
If there is loft above the landing and a clear path to the roof, yes. The survey checks the route for the tube and the gap between the framing members.