Our Guarantee

What this guarantee covers

The guarantee covers the installation as work: the structural opening and its trimming, the upstand or kerb where there is one, the flashings and soakers, the underlay dressing around the frame, the way the covering terminates against the unit, the insulation and vapour control layer at the perimeter, and the internal reveal formed as part of the job.

If water enters the building through the perimeter of an installation because one of those details was formed wrongly, that is a claim under this guarantee. If a damp mark appears in the plaster at the head or the corners of a reveal because insulation stopped short of the frame, that is also a claim under this guarantee. Both are workmanship, and both are put right at no cost to you.

The period is ten years from the date of completion recorded on the guarantee document issued at handover. The date on that document governs, not the date of the quotation and not the date of the deposit.

The four perimeter details the guarantee is written against

Ten years is a deliberate figure rather than a round one. A weathering detail proves itself over roughly that period, because a lap formed short or an underlay slit rather than dressed rarely shows in the first winter. It shows on the third or fourth south-westerly gale, when driving rain travels sideways across the covering. So the guarantee is written against the four things the workmanship actually controls.

• Upstand height. On a flat roof, 150mm measured from the finished surface of the waterproofing at the highest point of the fall, not from the deck and not from the lowest corner. Standing water, snow and wind-driven rain all climb, and that is the height at which they stop.
• Falls. A deck designed to fall at around 1:40, so that after deflection and normal timber movement the finished fall is no shallower than 1:80. Anything flatter ponds, and a pond sitting against a kerb for half the year will find any weakness in it.
• Flashing laps and the fixing pattern. Every lap running in the direction the water is already travelling, head laps of at least 150mm and more on a shallow pitch, lead at code 4 or code 5 as the position requires, and every piece fixed at the head only so it can move along its length.
• Where the covering terminates, and how the underlay is dressed. A tongue of membrane taken up over the head of the frame and stapled to the batten above, side pieces dressed into the frame’s own drainage channel, so any water that crosses the covering lands on the membrane and runs down outside the frame.

None of the four can be inspected once the job is finished, which is exactly why they are the ones worth guaranteeing. The technical explanation of how each behaves in service is on the do rooflights leak page.

How this differs from the manufacturer’s warranty on the unit

Two documents, two issuers, two sets of failure modes. Confusing them is the most common reason a homeowner ends up chasing the wrong party.

That last row is the practical point. A homeowner looking at a mark on a ceiling should not have to decide whether the cause is glass or installation before anyone will talk to them. Send a photograph, the diagnosis is made first, and the right route is then taken on your behalf. What the makers typically warrant, component by component, is set out on what guarantee comes with the work.

Registration of the unit, and the pack issued at handover

Where a manufacturer offers an extended term for a unit registered within a set period after installation, that registration is done at handover rather than left to you, and the invoice date is the date used.

At handover you receive the guarantee document with the completion date on it, the manufacturer’s warranty documents for the unit, the Building Control completion certificate in your name, and photographs of the opening taken at each stage: the structure with the covering off, the trimmers before they were covered, the underlay dressed around the frame, the flashings laid in, and the insulation and vapour layer tight to the frame before the plasterboard went on.

Those photographs are part of the guarantee rather than a courtesy. A document written against four buried details is worth considerably more when there is a dated record that they exist.

Conditions attached to this guarantee

The conditions are short and none of them is onerous.

• The contract price has been paid in full.
• The perimeter detail is left as it was formed. Where another trade lifts the covering around the frame, re-lays it differently, alters the kerb or works on the deck, the guarantee continues to apply to everything except the altered area.
• Ordinary cleaning is kept up. On an accessible pitch that means the glass and the drainage channel at the head of the frame, because a channel packed with moss and grit stops draining and holds water against the frame. Debris that gathers under a tree line gets cleared.
• Moving parts are wiped and lightly lubricated as the maker specifies, and a unit that has become stiff is looked at rather than forced.
• A problem is reported when it appears rather than after a further winter, so that the cause can be found before consequential damage develops.

Cleaning and the small amount of maintenance a rooflight needs are covered on cleaning and maintaining a rooflight. Where a unit is above a stairwell and out of reach, an electric opener and a self-cleaning outer coating make those conditions realistic rather than theoretical, which is why they get recommended at survey for those positions.

What falls outside this guarantee

Being straight about the edges is more useful than a broad promise. Four categories sit outside a workmanship guarantee, and they are the same four on any roof job in the country.

Storm damage beyond the design conditions. Wind speeds or impact loads that the surrounding covering itself would not survive are an insurance matter rather than a workmanship one.

Movement in the building. Subsidence, a settling wall, or deflection elsewhere in the structure that shifts an opening is a building problem that arrived from underneath the work.

Fair wear. Gaskets reaching the end of their service life, a finish weathering, or a mechanism that has never been lubricated are wear rather than defect, and they sit under the maker’s terms where they sit anywhere.

Condensation. Droplets on the room side of the glass on a cold morning are humid air meeting the coldest surface in the room, and the answer is ventilation and reveal geometry. That is worth separating carefully from a damp mark in the plaster at the top corner of a reveal, worst in winter, which is a cold bridge and is squarely a workmanship item. Telling them apart is set out on condensation, ventilation and rooflights, and where there is any doubt the diagnosis is made on site at no cost.

Making a claim

Email info@severnskylightsgloucester.co.uk. There is no form to complete and no registration step, because the guarantee was issued to you at handover and the job is already on record.

Include the address the work was carried out at, the completion date from the guarantee document, and a description of what you are seeing. State whether it happens in all rain or only when the wind is from one direction, whether it is worse in winter, and when it first appeared. That detail narrows the cause more than anything else, because water arriving only on a south-westerly points at a lap or an upstand, and a mark that appears in February and fades in April points at a cold bridge.

Claims are acknowledged in writing. A site visit is arranged to inspect the installation, and we aim to have somebody look within five working days, sooner where water is actively coming in. If the roof needs making watertight while the cause is investigated, that is done first and questions of cause are settled afterwards.

Evidence that helps a claim

None of the following is required, and a claim will not be refused for want of it. All of it shortens the process.

• A photograph of the mark or the water inside, taken while it is wet rather than after it has dried.
• A photograph of the ceiling or reveal showing where the mark sits relative to the frame, since a mark at the head, at a side and at the cill each suggest something different.
• The date and rough weather conditions when it happened, including wind direction if you noticed it.
• A photograph of the outside of the unit from ground level or from a window opposite, where that can be taken safely.
• The handover pack, or simply the completion date from it.
• Details of any work carried out on or near the roof by anybody else since the installation.

Please do not go onto a roof to take a photograph. Nothing in a claim needs it, and the site visit exists for that purpose.

What happens once a claim is accepted

Where the inspection shows the cause lies in the workmanship, Severn returns to site and puts the detail right at no cost to you. That may mean the covering taken back and the flashings re-set with a longer lap, an upstand rebuilt to the correct height, the underlay re-dressed around the frame, a reveal opened up and the insulation and vapour layer reinstated tight to the frame, or in some cases the unit lifted out and reinstalled into a corrected opening.

Scaffold or a tower, materials and labour for that work are all covered. Making good the internal finish disturbed by it, including plaster and a matching coat of paint on the affected surface, is covered too. Where the finding is that the sealed unit or a mechanism has failed rather than the installation, the claim is taken up with the manufacturer under their warranty, and the labour to take the old unit out and install the replacement is covered by this guarantee where the installation is still within its ten years.

Remedial work carried out under this guarantee does not restart the ten years, and the original completion date continues to run.

If you disagree with the outcome of a claim

Where the inspection concludes that the cause sits outside this guarantee, you are given that finding in writing, with the reasoning and the photographs it was based on, together with a price for putting the matter right if you would like it done.

If you consider that conclusion wrong, say so, and the matter moves into the staged process on the complaints procedure page, which includes a review by someone other than the person who made the original assessment. Your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 continue to apply throughout and are not affected by the outcome of a claim under this document.

If the property changes hands

The guarantee is written against the installation rather than against the person who commissioned it, and the benefit of it passes to a subsequent owner of the property for the remainder of the ten years. There is no transfer fee and no form.

What a new owner needs is the handover pack, so it is worth leaving it with the house: the guarantee document with the completion date, the manufacturer’s warranty papers, the Building Control completion certificate and the stage photographs. A buyer’s solicitor asks for the certificate, and a surveyor asks about the rest. The manufacturer’s position on transfer varies by maker and is stated in their own document.

Insurance, and the standing of this document

This is a guarantee given directly by Severn Skylights Gloucester and backed by the business. It depends on the business continuing to trade, which is true of any workmanship guarantee given by an installer in their own name.

The business carries public liability insurance and a copy of the certificate is available on request. This guarantee is given by Severn Skylights Gloucester in its own name and is not separately insurance-backed, which is true of any workmanship guarantee given by an installer directly. It depends on the business continuing to trade, and it is better to be told that plainly than to discover it during a claim.

Your statutory rights

This guarantee is given in addition to your rights in law and takes nothing away from them. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 the installation service must be carried out with reasonable care and skill, and the unit and materials supplied must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. Those rights run against Severn under the contract for the work and are not limited by the ten-year period stated here.

Where the work involves a unit that has reached the end of its life, the replacement process is described on replacing a failed or misted rooflight, and why sealed units eventually go is on misted sealed units and why they go.

How to reach us about a guarantee matter

Email info@severnskylightsgloucester.co.uk with the address, the completion date and a description of what you are seeing. Photographs help, and so does the wind direction. Every guarantee matter is handled by email so that there is a written record on both sides from the first message onwards, which is in your interest as much as anybody’s.