Do you have a lantern type roof light eg in your kitchen? Do you have blinds or similar on it to reduce glare/heat?

[WhoWhereWhatWhy]

We’re planning an extension, and will have a large eat in kitchen with a sitting area with a tv. About 8m x 6m, with large sliding doors to the south west and to the north west, plus a lantern.

Im thinking of putting an outdoor awning type thing outside the doors to the south west to stop the glare, but I’m concerned that there will be too much heat and glare coming in through the lantern (and maybe the doors too really) at certain times of day/the year. We’re having UFH. I’m now thinking whether to have air con.

if anyone has any experience of reducing glare and heat in a similar room, I’d be grateful to know what you tried.

Our extension faces north with a big lantern (not quite a lantern but similar) and we needed blinds on it

Please would you mind sharing the blinds you chose?

We are just ordering blinds for ours. We are getting sail style ones but you can get ones that pull over the opening at ceiling level. We have had our kitchen in the orangery for 14 years and only just got round to ordering blinds. It’s a mixture of heat and glare that has pushed this now. We face north and east but when the sun is in the south it’s high and very bright light, and heat, comes through the glass. We are having 3 sails and they are £2,200 including measuring, bespoke design and fitting.

We have a large sky lantern. Have an electric blind fitted across it. Keeps the warm in when it’s winter and the sun out on days like today

We don't have a lantern, but do have a velux skylight which opens up from a switch and has a black out blind. Really like it, no issues with heat.

We got some really good electric blinds from a company called Windowtreat. They come across on runners so they don’t sag or bunch up. Not cheap but really good quality and looked lovely.

We moved into a house that had an extension to the kitchen with a large roof lantern and my advice would be to not get one. It’s hot in the summer, and cold in the winter. You cannot watch TV on a sunny day because of the glare. Any flies that get into the house seem to congregate in it and it’s constantly covered in cobwebs, it’s also a pain in the arse to clean the outside and is always covered in bird shit. I hate the damn thing.

we have a lantern in our south-facing sunroom- we have a voile on a frame that sits on the ledge, the voile softens the light and prevents bees getting trapped up there- I was forever getting the step ladders and bee catcher out. We have french doors (I know, old-fashioned charm lol) to the garden, and to the dining room, which we have open to dissipate the heat, we keep the door to the kitchen closed to prevent any incursions by visiting cats.

In a previous house we did an extension with a sloping roof and velux windows, including a pole for opening them. We did that, oh, a mere handful of times over the years. The extension faced west but the roof slope was north-facing on a side return extension, so light and glare wasn’t really an issue, no blinds.

My feeling is not to bother with blinds or openers unless you go the whole way and get electric integrated ones.

Can you go for a velux solution instead? They often have integrated blinds. The other option might be some kind of translucent frosting.

@BadSkiingMum if you have not had a lantern with sun pouring intense light into the area you won’t understand the problem. It’s also hot! Roofs are different as they don’t have sun from all angles if the roof just faces east and west.

Our east facing kitchen extension just has a couple of velux windows, no blinds. They face north and are open all the time in the summer, hot air rises and so it's a good way to keep the house cool (we do the same with the velux windows in the attic which are east facing and do have blinds). The french doors to the garden have curtains to reduce the heat in the morning. On a new south facing extension I'd be tempted to have an awning outside to reduce heat build up. Or shutters would be even better. Or plant a tree outside.

@MeetMeOnTheCorner Of course I understand what a lantern is and what the issues with it might be, which is why I personally prefer velux windows with integrated blinds (if you are in a direction to need blinds) as they are a far more sensible solution!

We rebuilt a house from bare brick upwards and had a free choice of roofing and window styles at design stage, but were advised against glass roof solutions due to these kinds of problems.

I get that if you move into a house with a south facing lantern or a glass roof then you are stuck with it, so it may be worth spending £££ on blinds, but if you are building then the whole point of the design phase is to get these things right from the outset. A bit of time spent by OP considering the roof pitch, window options and other structural elements could make the space far more pleasant for years to come.

I did want the big roof and it’s part of an oak framed orangery. It’s easy to forget how bright the sun is! However shades can work and I certainly didn’t want Velux. The kitchen mirrors other areas of the house and looks matter. I do think our glass roof is too big but it’s hindsight. The shades should work and no reason why op cannot look at a motorized shade or sails. The shape or our roof with oak beams means a shade pulling across all of it won’t work, but sail shades at the southern end will.

Lots to think about here, thank you for all the responses.

To answer some questions:

We can’t have a pitched roof. There is a bedroom which is above part of the extension with a sash window, and that means there won’t be enough height above the kitchen to pitch a roof.

Architect is saying that we need an additional natural light source further towards that end of the kitchen (which is where the functioning kitchen with all the units and appliances will be) which is the reason for the lantern as well as the doors. He seems to be dismissing my worries about heat by saying things along the lines of ‘there are lots of blinds and anti glare glass on the market’ (which might be the case, I just don’t know, and want to make the right decisions at this planning stage)

We’d be happy to spend on motorised sail or shades or whatever would work best

We are thinking of putting motorised awnings on the exterior walls to reduce glare through the glass doors too

I don’t want to have a voile or translucent frosting. Much as I see the practicality, and I’m all for practical options where needed, I’d rather plan on a different glass option if it came to that

Those that do have motorised blinds on their lantern, has this stopped the glare and heat, or is it still somewhat of an issue albeit reduced please?

It totally stopped it. For context this was a single storey extension (sitting room) which was right up against the boundary on two sides so was only permissible with a skylight and no windows. Before blinds = total sauna and ridiculous glare. After blinds - totally comfortable and can watch TV easily but not dark. Windowtreat do various finishes depending on what your priorities are (black out/ sun reflection etc). Might be worth contacting them - they did an initial call with me to advise on spec and no hard sell but easier to fix the electics for the motor when you're building the extension if that's the route you go down.

We have a large lantern in the dining room/living area, it can get hot so we had electric blinds installed which keeps the heat out in summer and heat in during winter. It works using a remote control, very effective and I would recommend.

One thing we did find quite useful before doing our second big building project (different house) was to go to a building exhibition in the Excel centre. It was quite useful to see various suppliers in one place with their products on display. Time spent exploring options and refining details at the design stage really does pay off later.

We had one. It was awful for all the reasons @RancidRuby describes. We ended up throwing a blanket over it from the outside one year when we had a heatwave and were boiling alive inside. Am so pleased we moved house.

@WhoWhereWhatWhy Look at Sprcislist Blimds. They have quite a lot of info on lantern roof blinds. There are similar companies for sail blinds but as you are starting from scratch, I’d go with a motorized horizontal blind and don’t forget you can have different blind fabrics but you need light to come through.

We have found we need a blind for only around 3-4 months of the year. I love natural light and sky! You also need doors that open to ensure throughput of air into this space. I might consider air conditioning too, but that won’t stop glare via the roof and is only effective with doors closed. We like our numerous doors open but in extreme heat, some people don’t like this.

Did you have blinds as well please?

Reassuring to see that the blinds have solved the problem for others, thank you. I will follow up with the recommendation. And look into the show at the excel.

No, we didn't (we had run out of money as we were doing a big extension and we hadn't realised how important they would be so deprioritised them). We also had two sides of glazing but that was easier to manage with thermal curtains.

The blinds should solve some of the sunlight / thermal management challenges, but wouldn't solve the dead wasps / dragonflies / flies that buzzed and died up there in their droves.

We have an 8x3 extension with bifold doors and 3 1x1 flat roof lights. We have intu blinds on the bifolds which are great, but I do sometimes wish we had blinds on the roof lights as well.

We had aircon put in as part of the build and I would 100% recommend it. It can also be used to heat in the winter.