If you’re planning to build a dream home for your family you’re probably thinking about one thing – how to create a property that provides a sense of space.
It can be easy to fall into the trap of assuming patio or bi-fold doors with views to the garden are guaranteed to help you achieve this. While these may look impressive on plans and help bring the outside in, they won’t necessarily give you the amount of daylight you need to fill the entire space.
To build a property which is filled with an abundance of natural light, you need to consider where daylight is coming from, and make sure that you’re using products that will harness this light to brighten up your home and make it feel more spacious.
For instance, that stunning single-storey kitchen diner with bi-fold doors you were considering may only catch a glimpse of the sun in the summer thanks to its north-facing aspect. This means that for much of the year the room is likely to be dark, despite its all-encompassing glazed wall. Adding roof windows will make up for the daylight that isn’t captured through patio or bi-fold doors, and works to complement your other glazing, making rooms feel spacious and bright.
VELUX’s daylight expert Grant Sneddon commented: “With the current lack of plots for self-build homes, properties often need to be designed to fit into non-traditional plot shapes, which means that self-builders may often have tricky dimensions to work with.
“This could mean that natural daylight has further to penetrate into the house if rooms are long and thin, because any vertical windows and or bi-fold doors are further away. Roof windows can bring in twice as much daylight as vertical windows of the same size, and we recommend making sure that all glazing covers 15-20% of the floor space.”
Windows aren’t only about daylight and a feeling of space, but they’re also about creating that ideal indoor environment.
VELUX ACTIVE uses the newest smart-sensor technology to act and think on your behalf. The first of its kind in the roof window industry, smart sensors monitor the temperature, humidity and CO2 concentration inside homes and in turn activate a gateway to open or close the roof windows automatically. The smart system also prevents homes from overheating by proactively closing shutters and awning blinds.
For more ideas and project inspiration, visit www.velux.co.uk/selfbuild