Barking
What sits under Barking's roofs
How terraces, inter-war estate houses and flats in the borough each take a rooflight, and what keeps the room warm afterwards.
01Streets
Four kinds of Barking roof, four kinds of rooflight
Barking has been rebuilt in layers, and each layer has a different roof over a different kind of room. Rooflight installation in Barking starts with knowing which layer your house belongs to.
Close to the station and the old town centre, rows of Victorian and Edwardian terraces run street after street, with slate roofs and narrow back rooms that get little sun. Further out, the huge inter-war cottage-style estate that the London County Council built across this part of east London gives Barking and its neighbours thousands of near-identical houses, many now extended at the back. Post-war blocks and low-rise estates fill in between. Down by the river, new flats are going up where the land was once industrial.
A skylight suits each of these very differently. A terrace wants a slim roof window in the back slope. An estate house with a flat-roofed kitchen extension wants a kerb-mounted rooflight or a lantern. A flat or maisonette has its own planning route, so it needs a conversation before a design. The table is where we begin at survey.
| Barking home | Most likely glass | Where the heat goes |
|---|---|---|
| Victorian or Edwardian terrace | Roof window, rear slope or loft room | Thin insulation between slim rafters |
| Inter-war estate house | Flat rooflight over a rear extension | Tired felt roof under the new frame |
| Post-war maisonette or flat | Sun tunnel or rooflight, once the council agrees | Shared roof, so the build-up is not yours alone |
| New riverside home | Rarely needed, sometimes a roof terrace light | Already insulated, keep the detail tight |
02Estate houses
The Becontree-style house with a bolted-on kitchen
The estate houses were designed for daylight at the front and back, then extended into the garden. The extension is usually where the light runs out.
Those long, narrow plots invited an extension, and most owners filled them with a single-storey kitchen. The result is familiar: a bright back door, a dim middle, and a flat roof that was built for a lean-to rather than a room you sit in all day. A rooflight over the dining end pulls the daylight down the length of the room. What matters afterwards is whether the roof under it can keep the heat in.
That is why we look at the existing roof before we choose the glass. An old felt or bitumen deck with thin insulation will let the new rooflight work against it, and the cold will show up as a cold zone under the opening. There are two sensible routes.
Fit into the existing deck
Works where the roof is sound and the build-up can take a new insulated kerb. Quicker, tidier, and the cost stays contained.
Re-insulate while the roof is open
Worth it when the deck is tired. The kerb, the surrounding insulation and the lining then match, and the whole ceiling feels the benefit.
One more thing worth knowing about these extensions: the ceiling inside is often a plain plasterboard lid with the insulation fixed above it, so the opening has to be framed and lined with care. If the reveal is left bare, warm air reaches the cold edge of the kerb and the line of the ceiling around the glass can look damp and dark. A deep, insulated, smoothly plastered reveal avoids that and also bounces daylight further into the room.
Our flat roof rooflights page covers the kerbs, glass and opening styles in full.
03Council
London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, and what to ask it
Barking is a London borough, so the council that matters is the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Its answer depends heavily on what kind of home you own.
A great many Barking households live in flats and maisonettes, and the usual householder allowance for rooflights does not stretch to them. If that is you, the first step is a short conversation with the borough, and often with whoever owns the freehold or manages the roof. We would rather you knew that before a survey than after a quote.
For a house, the position is simpler, and our skylight planning permission guide sets out how the rules work. The historic ground around the old Abbey and the river quay is the part of town where it pays to ask first, because older areas can carry extra controls. Check with the council for the street you are on, and send us what they say so the quote can follow it.
Barking is also changing quickly, with new homes arriving along the river and older blocks being renewed. If your building has been refurbished lately, the roof may already carry fresh insulation and warranties, and we would want to protect those rather than disturb them.
04Terraces
Lofts and back bedrooms in the railway-age terraces
The terraces by the station were built when daylight meant windows on two sides, and a loft room under that roof is a different story.
A loft converted from the old roof space often has one thing in common across the street: a lot of floor, little glass, and a ceiling that follows the slope. A roof window brings the room to life, but these rafters tend to be slimmer than the ones used today, and the insulation may have been laid between the ceiling joists rather than along the slope. If the new window goes in without matching it, the frame becomes the coldest spot in the room.
We check the depth of the rafters, the line of the insulation and the way the old lining meets the new frame, and then size the window to fit. A roof window for a loft does not need to be big to be useful. Two modest windows on opposite sides can light a room more evenly than one large one, and they help warm air escape on a hot afternoon. If the loft is part of a bigger plan, our guide to roof windows goes through the options.
It also pays to think about summer. A south-facing loft slope in a terrace can heat up fast, so an opening roof window, or a blind fitted at the same time, keeps the room usable in July without asking the glass to do something it was never meant to. We would rather talk that through at survey than leave you with a hot room in the first heatwave.
The estate streets repeat house after house, so a back extension on one Barking road is a good guide to the one next door.
05Warm spec
What a warm Barking rooflight is made of
Barking sits on the Thames side of London, where winter is damp and heating bills are watched. A rooflight here has to earn its place on the warmth side.
The panel below is the shape of our usual specification. It changes with the room and the roof, and we put the exact choice in your written quote. The point of every line is the same: a skylight that is bright on a grey Saturday and does not make the room cooler when the heating is on. The warm specification page has the longer version, and our energy-efficient rooflights hub explains the figures.
A warm rooflight, line by line
- Glass
- Sealed double glazed unit, with a low-emissivity coating on the inner pane
- Edge
- Warm-edge spacer so the rim of the glass stays above the cold line
- Kerb or upstand
- Insulated all the way round, not just on top
- Frame
- Thermally broken, so cold does not travel through the metal
- Lining
- Splayed and insulated reveal, closed neatly to the ceiling
06Tight streets
Getting a fitting done on a busy Barking street
Barking is about 21 road miles from our Basildon base, so we plan the day around the street rather than the distance.
Many Barking roads are lined with parked cars from end to end, and a terrace may have no front drive at all. We think about the unloading point, the way glass comes in through the house and whether a scaffold tower is practical before the day arrives. Floors and furniture are covered, and the same team that surveyed the roof fits the glass.
Fitting a fresh rooflight, glass and frame in place of the old, and cutting a new opening, are each notifiable work, and the Building Control notice goes in from us for you. Our answer on Building Regulations for rooflights explains the rules. We also work in Dagenham next door and in Ilford to the north.
- Free survey with a look inside, up on the roof and into the loft or ceiling void.
- Written quote naming the glass, the kerb or flashing, the lining and any council check to make.
- One fitting team, one day where we can, with the house protected.
- Insulated lining finished to the ceiling, then the Building Control notification.
- A 10-year workmanship guarantee, in writing, at handover.
07Your move
Before you ring, a short list for Barking homeowners
A few minutes of homework makes the survey shorter and the quote more exact.
None of this is a test. It just means we spend the visit on the roof rather than on questions you could have answered over a cup of tea.
- Do you own the freehold, or is the roof shared with a flat above?
- Which room is the dull one, and what time of day do you most want light there?
- Is the roof flat, pitched or a mix, and how old does it feel?
- Have you had an extension or loft work done, and do you have any paperwork?
- Would an opening window help in summer, or is fixed glass enough?
Plain answers on skylights for Barking homes
Do I need permission for a rooflight in a Barking flat?
Usually yes, in some form. Flats and maisonettes do not get the householder allowance that houses do, so speak to the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and to your freeholder before anything is ordered.
Can a rooflight go on the flat roof of my estate house extension?
Very often it can. The extension's own permission and the state of the roof deck decide the details. We check the deck at survey and tell you in the quote if it needs re-insulating first.
Do the slim rafters in a Barking terrace limit the window?
Sometimes, yes. Terrace rafters tend to be slimmer than the ones used today, so we size the window to the rafter spacing and frame the opening around it. We look at the rafters and the insulation along the slope at survey, before we choose a frame.
Do you work on terraced streets with no parking?
Yes. We plan the unloading point and how the glass reaches the roof before the day, and talk through any access equipment in the quote.
How do I get a quote for a rooflight in Barking?
Use our quote page to book a free survey. You get a written quote afterwards, and the whole job is covered by a 10-year workmanship guarantee. Start from the homepage to see how we work.
