Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 9
Obligations Visual Impact on Your Home
Any loft conversion creating living or sleeping accommodation within the roof space will
of necessity need some form of window for light and ventilation. Although you may es-
cape these requirements for a simple bathroom or toilet, even in these latter cases the need
for ventilation by extractor will result in some form of additional vent pipe or grille in the
roof or gable end.
Before dealing with specific requirements concerning planning approval for your pro-
posed conversion, the likely impact of the alterations on the architecture of your house
must be carefully considered. The type of window installation dormer, roof window or
roof light will depend very much on what is seen to fit in architecturally with the style of
your building. It would hardly be appropriate, for instance, to install a steep-pitch dormer
with a small gable on a relatively low pitched building.
Conversely, flat roof dormers will look totally out of place on a steep-pitch cottage roof
(see Fig. 3.17 for dormer styles and Fig. 8.13 for further examples).
To gain the maximum amount of full-height room area within the attic, there is a tempta-
tion to settle for very large dormer windows which by their very size will have to carry
flat or monopitch roofs; if this is the only solution then they should be kept to the rear of
the property where they may well prove more acceptable to the planning authorities,
simply because they will bring about no major visual change to the character of the main
facade of the building. The degree of change to the building acceptable to the planning au-
thorities will be dependent very much upon the building location. For instance, a loft con-
version proposed in a house on a small development of architecturally similar dwellings
will be viewed differently to the same proposal on a similar individual house in a street of
mixed architectural styles or on an isolated country cottage.
Every effort, therefore, should be made to design new roof architecture which is in sym-
pathy with the style of the existing property and that of the surroundings. The fenestration,
i.e. location of windows in the facade, of the existing building will almost dictate the later-
al location of dormers and roof windows, and this in turn may have some effect on the po-
sitioning relative to the rooms created within the attic.
