Suppliers of conservation rooflights for LBC?

[Penners]

Unfortunately, my employers, long before my time, seem to have concluded that a condition that says "Rooflights are to be of the conservation type" is sufficient, and so there are quite a lot of the Velux conservation type out and about. As has been said, they are little more than ordinary Veluxes with a central glazing bar added.
Tuscan Foundry and Clement Windows, for example, do conservation rooflights too, but I think the term "Conservation Rooflight" is the registered trade mark of one company - it's possible that the various other examples which can be found by googling are actually all by the same manufacturer.

Many thanks for that, Gareth. I'm agog with admiration at your ability to rise above petty provocations.

I shall tell my friend about Tuscan and Clement. I've certainly noticed that a search on "conservation rooflight" always seems to bring up the same company (via several different URLs), so thanks for that explanation. Do I understand you correctly that Velux's "conservation" model is generally acceptable to your ilk?

 

[JoceAndChris]

This is all very well, and very interesting, but what I want to replace my hideous skylighty thing on the flat lead roof behind the castellations, is a dome. I believe it's called a roof lantern, and it must be a dome shape, with bright yellow glass like what's in John Soane's house. Who will make that? The glass really ought to be etched with naiads and dryads too.

This sort of thing
http://www.creative-freelance.org.uk/reviews/soane.html

 

[Penners]

dryads.

Aren't they the people who celebrate the summer solstice at Stonehenge?

 

[Penners]

Gareth - a message of thanks from my friend. He found Clement to be particularly helpful, and reasonably priced. So he's ordered a side-hung, conservation, escape rooflight from them. Apparently the 'escape' bit is very important, because the principal reason for installing the rooflight is to comply with the fire regs.

He is most grateful to you and everyone else for their help, as am I. He now owes me a favour, so next time I have a really unpleasant job that needs doing....

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Gareth - a message of thanks from my friend. He found Clement to be particularly helpful, and reasonably priced. So he's ordered a side-hung, conservation, escape rooflight from them. Apparently the 'escape' bit is very important, because the principal reason for installing the rooflight is to comply with the fire regs.

He is most grateful to you and everyone else for their help, as am I. He now owes me a favour, so next time I have a really unpleasant job that needs doing....

Well, that's very sweet of him, almost makes up for the relative rarity of thanks from my "real" punters, even the ones whose aspirations I haven't dashed...

 

[LadyArowana]

Apparently the 'escape' bit is very important, because the principal reason for installing the rooflight is to comply with the fire regs.

He is most grateful to you and everyone else for their help, as am I. He now owes me a favour, so next time I have a really unpleasant job that needs doing....

Very intrigued by that. I'm imagining the poor chap trying to somehow jump up and grab the surround of the rooflight and then haul himself through. I hope your friend is tall, I fear I would be burnt to a crisp.Well done on securing a favour for the future though, do you have something in mind?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Ah, you must have lofty Georgian buildings in mind LadyA. It would be very easy for me to pop out of the roof window here.

 

[LadyArowana]

Ah, you must have lofty Georgian buildings in mind LadyA. It would be very easy for me to pop out of the roof window here.

Ah ha, so you HAVE been trying to sneak out after hours then :lol:

 

[AMc]

As was explained to me by my Building Control Officer when we were having trouble fitting a compliant sash window & ended up with a casement- fire escape windows are primary to allow the fire brigade access into the property and provide a way to evacuate you rather than the expectation that you will be able to climb out and jump clear of a raging fire.
As I said to him if my house was on fire and I couldn't get to the stairs I would smash my way out of the existing sashes & the height they could open to would be immaterial - apparently that assumes your concious and uninjured

 

[Penners]

I'm imagining the poor chap trying to somehow jump up and grab the surround of the rooflight and then haul himself through. I hope your friend is tall, I fear I would be burnt to a crisp.

Ahm but you're imagining a room with normal height walls, Milady. This room has walls less than a metre high, before they become the pitch of the roof. So, as Joce says, it'll be easy to have the rooflight at a comfortable popping-out-for-a breath-of-fresh-air height.

 

[Penners]

Just a PS to this thread:

Thanks to Gareth's suggestion, a rooflight was bought from Clement and has now been fitted. The thatcher has arrived and started work re-thatching around new window, before he starts on a replacement ridge. Here he is at work - in the photos the rooflight looks proud of the thatch at the moment, but once the work is finished it'll be slightly recessed.







My friend sends many thanks to everyone for your thoughts and ideas, as do I.

 

[Flyfisher]

Thanks for the follow-up. It's always good to know how things turn out.

Wonderful chimneys as well!

 

[michael]

Sorry for this late comment
I think you should try and go for cast roof lights rather than steel if you possibly can. Those steel ones just don’t look right on an old roof. They’re just to slick and contemporary and certainly look as if they’re the product of modern manufacturing even if they are labelled conservation or low profile. I was quite surprised how different a cast roof light looked against a steel one when I was looking around for a replacement a few years back and saw both examples standing next to one another.
I have quite a few original roof lights on my property and they stand quite proud of the roofline but at least they’re original and cast iron and in keeping with the period of the property and the manufacturing methods of the time.
You may still be able to get cast aluminium roof lights manufactured around old patterns.

 

[Feltwell]

You may still be able to get cast aluminium roof lights manufactured around old patterns.

The problem with this is the thermal break, or rather lack of one. I have 8 rooflights like this installed in my garage - I picked them up very cheaply, they had been taken out of a barn conversion.

The original owner of the barn had a contact in a foundry and had them cast from an aluminium alloy, to a pattern pretty much the same as the Victorians used - and then put sealed double glazed units in them. When installed in the barn though, they suffered terribly from condensation. The barn roof eventually had to be replaced (it had been re-built very badly in the conversion) but the windows were so bad for condensation that the owner fitted new ones - hence how I picked them up second hand. Of course for my unheated garage they are fine.

When I fitted new rooflights in the house, the manufacturer's information made a big point of the insulation and thermal break in the frame, and how important it was to fit the frame correctly and not compromise the thermal break. I seem to remember that the original aluminium framed DG windows, when they first came out in the 70's, suffered badly from condensation and that later they were fitted with a thermal break in the frame as well.

 

[michael]

How did the Victorians deal with this problem? Lack of central heating I guess.
My original cast iron roof lights are single glazed however they just allow light into a small loft space. The light then comes down into the room via a four panelled glazed ceiling hatch directly below the roof light. The four glass panels in the ceiling hatch have etched patterning so that you can’t see up into the roof space. No condensation problems.

 

[Feltwell]

How did the Victorians deal with this problem? Lack of central heating I guess.

I reckon you're right, or at least central heating has made the problem worse. We had 2 small original cast iron single glazed rooflights when we first moved in - both were pretty well corroded due to condensation. Interestingly though, both had a drain arrangement for internal condensation to drain away outside. It was well clogged up!

Your loft arrangement must help a lot to keep the condensation down.

 

[michael]

I wonder also how they used to deal with condensation on larger glass roof structures where warm air was in contact with cold single glazing? I’m thinking of roof lanterns for example i.e. oversized roof lights that look like green houses or what about the Crystal Palace or the Kew garden hot houses? It’s certainly not raining with condensation when you walk into those despite the heat and humidity.

 

[Penners]

I think you should try and go for cast roof lights rather than steel

That's a great idea, Michael. I'll pop over and tell my friend to rip off all the new thatching, remove the brand new rooflight and install a different one instead.

The thatcher should be able to come back and re-do the thatching within a couple of years or so.

 

[michael]

Once again, sorry for the late comment. I picked up this thread very late

 

[Penners]

Just pulling your leg, Michael. :wink: