Get a Quote

There are three stages, and they happen in this order for a reason.

The enquiry. Use the form on this page, call 01702 898232 or email info@skylightsonsea.co.uk. What we want at this point is the address, the room, and a sentence about what you are trying to achieve. “The back of the kitchen is dark” is a better starting point than a product code, because the product should come out of the survey rather than go into it.

The desk check. Before anybody drives out, we look at the address. That means checking the aspect of the roof planes on satellite imagery, the rough age and form of the property, whether it sits in a conservation area or an Article 4 zone, and which authority covers it. Half an hour at a desk often changes what we bring on the van and what we need to ask you on site.

The survey. One visit, usually an hour or two depending on how many openings are involved and whether there is a loft to get into. You do not need to clear the room, but access to the loft hatch and to the rear of the property both help. We measure, photograph, get on the roof where it is safe to do so, and talk through the options in front of the actual building rather than over the phone.

The written quote follows afterwards rather than being handed over on the doorstep. Glass values get pulled from the manufacturer’s data sheets, sizes get checked against the structural opening, and access gets priced properly. A number produced on a driveway in five minutes is a guess wearing a suit.

None of this is compulsory. All of it makes the survey shorter and the quote sharper.

• The full address and postcode. It fixes the orientation, the planning position and the local authority in one go.
• Two or three photographs. One of the room from the doorway, one of the ceiling where you imagine the glass, and one of the outside of the roof from the garden. Photographs of a loft space are worth more than any description of one.
• The rough size or number of units you have in mind, even if it is only “something about the size of a dining table”. It tells us whether we are looking at standard trimming or a designed opening.
• What the room is for. A kitchen, a home office and a bedroom want different glass, because heat, glare on a screen and overnight cooling are three different problems.
• Anything you already know about the roof. Age of the extension, whether the flat roof has been recovered, whether a previous owner altered anything.
• Any deadline. Plastering booked, a kitchen fitter waiting, a house going on the market. Lead times on glass are the part of the programme nobody can compress, so it is better known early.

The survey exists to remove the variables that make a range into a price. These are the things being recorded while we are there.

Structure

Roof type first, because a hand-cut roof and a factory truss offer completely different answers to the question “can this member be interrupted”. Then the direction and centres of the rafters or joists, the depth of the timbers, the span, and precisely what an opening of the size you want would sit across. Turning a kerb through ninety degrees can change how many members it crosses, and that is a decision you want made on a drawing rather than found on the morning of the work.

Build-up and condition

What is under the covering. On a flat roof, whether it is a warm deck or a cold one, what the membrane is, how the falls run and where the outlets sit. On a pitched roof, the covering type, the battens, the underlay and whether matching tiles are still obtainable. Insulation position matters too, because the perimeter of a new opening is where cold bridging starts if the insulation is not carried through.

Orientation and exposure

Every roof plane gets a compass bearing written against it, along with what shades it and for how long. This is not a formality here. Southend faces south across the Thames Estuary with an open horizon and a large reflective surface in front of it, so a south-facing plane and a north-facing plane on the same house want different glass. South and west planes are specified with solar-control glazing; north planes get clear glass and every bit of daylight available. A single glass specification applied to every unit on a house is a sign that nobody took a bearing.

Access and lifting

How the unit reaches the roof, and how the people reach it safely. Side return width, gate access, ground levels, overhead cables, whether a tower will do or a scaffold is needed, and for larger panes whether the glass goes through the house, over the roof or up the outside. Glass is heavy enough that a pane past roughly two square metres stops being something two people carry up a ladder, so the lifting method gets named on the quote as its own item.

The inside

Ceiling height, the shape of the reveal you want, whether it is splayed or square, what the finish needs to match, and where a spur exists if the unit is going to be powered. A splayed reveal spreads the daylight further into the room and costs a little more in boarding and plastering time, so it is a choice to settle while we are standing under the ceiling rather than after the opening is cut.

The quote is a scope document as much as a number. Every line below is either priced in or explicitly named as excluded, so there is nothing to argue about later.

Included as standard: the unit and the sealed glass unit at the stated whole-unit U-value and G-value; forming and trimming the opening; structural timber and the fixings; the kerb or upstand with insulation carried up it on flat-roof work; all weathering, flashing and membrane dressing; the named access arrangement; removal of waste and reinstatement of the surrounding roof covering; the Building Control notification to Southend-on-Sea City Council or whichever authority covers your address; and the ten-year workmanship guarantee that comes with every installation.

Named separately so you can see it: internal plastering and decoration, stated as far as the finish you actually want; the electrical connection for a powered unit, a rain sensor or an integrated blind; blinds themselves; a structural engineer’s calculations where the opening needs them; planning application fees and drawings in a conservation area or Article 4 zone; and any scaffold licence where a pavement is involved.

Sizes go on the quote in millimetres, with the structural opening and the unit size both stated so there is no ambiguity about which is which. Glass values go on it as whole-unit figures, not centre-pane ones. If you want to hold our number against somebody else’s, the costs page sets out the typical shape of the UK market for this work so you can see whether two quotes are covering the same scope.

The stages that take time are the survey slot, the manufacturing lead time on the glass, and the installation itself. Everything else is paperwork that runs alongside.

Lead times on units are the longest single item in the programme. A standard-size roof window in a common finish is usually stock or close to it. A bespoke roof lantern, a non-standard colour, a specified solar-control glass build-up or anything with a designed shape is manufactured to order, and manufacture-to-order in this industry generally runs several weeks rather than several days. That is the single strongest argument for starting the conversation before the builder is on site rather than after.

The installation itself is shorter than people expect. A direct swap of a roof window into a sound existing opening is a day. A new roof window into a pitched roof, including the internal reveal, is usually one to two days. A flat-roof unit on a new insulated kerb runs one to two days once access is up. A lantern over a full-width extension is typically two to four days depending on the structure and the lifting. Plastering and decoration follow on afterwards as a separate visit, because a fresh reveal needs to dry before it takes paint.

Building Control notification is made on your behalf, and the completion certificate follows the inspection rather than the installation. Keep it with the deeds. It is the document a buyer’s solicitor asks for.

A fixed price is fixed against a scope. Two things can move it, and both get flagged before any work continues rather than appearing on an invoice.

The first is anything hidden that only appears once a covering comes off: a deck that has taken water, a previous alteration by somebody else that was never done properly, or a structural member that turns out to have been notched. A thorough survey is what keeps that list short in the first place, and where something does turn up, you get told, shown a photograph of it and given a price before anyone carries on.

The second is you changing your mind, which is entirely allowed. Moving a unit half a metre, adding a second one, upgrading the glass or switching a manual opener to an electric one are all straightforward decisions before the order goes in and expensive ones afterwards. If you are weighing options, the survey visit is the moment to have that conversation, and a design conversation is worth having before anything is ordered rather than after.

One thing worth saying plainly. We install and replace skylights and rooflights, and that is all we do. If your existing unit has a failed seal, a cracked pane or an upstand that has given up, replacing it is our work and we will quote it. If what you actually need is somebody to sort out a roof covering, a roofer is the right call and we will say so rather than take the survey slot.

Fifteen years of fitting skylights and rooflights around this coastline sits behind every survey, every unit goes in to the regulations in force at the time, Part L for the thermal side and Part K for the safety glazing, and the notification is handled for you. Send an address, tell us which room is too dark or too hot, attach a photograph or two, and somebody will come and look at the roof properly. If you are still working out which type of unit the building wants, start on the services page and bring the question to the survey.