Everything You Need to Know About Picking The Right Dormer.
Firstly, What is a Dormer?
Before picking the right dormer to suit you design, Its important to understand clearly what one is. Dormers are an additional structure, often containing a window, added directly onto a vertically pitched roof. They will either have a flat, pointed, arched or hipped roof to coincide with the existing roof design.
Dormers are charming for their functionality of adding additional room and usage space to your home. (Which as we all know, more home space for all our growing possessions is always needed) Not only that, but they provide favourable aesthetic features that add to your home. Understand that choosing the right dormer for your home can be challenging. You need to choose your dormer based on how it integrates with existing exterior or the house. As well as meet your functionality expectations.
Gable End Dormer
A Gable-end dormer is the most conventional loft conversion to date. Its structure is pitched by two sloping panes, haltered to the top and supported by its triangulation.
The Advantages:
Cost-effective – Gable-fronted dormers are immensely popular. This is because of their unique style which is transferable to most homes exteriors. Leading to why they are so affordable. The Roaring demand keeps the prices low.
Weatherproof – Gable fronted dormers are resilient to all weather conditions. Their steep roods enable water to drain easier, resulting in fewer risks of leaks occurring to your structure.
Space – The space underneath a gable dormer is far substantial than for instance; a hip dormer. Choose a gable dormer, if space is what you desire.
Hipped Roof Dormer
A Hipped Roof Dormer is another popular choice of design. It consists of 3 sloping panes; angled from the two sides and front creating another triangular form.
The Advantages:
Discrete – Hipped roof dormers are easy to match to the exterior of your home – meaning your guaranteed a cohesive design.
Stability – The triangular foundation forms a stable structure that can uphold most weather conditions.
Flat Roof Dormer
A flat roof dormer is another popular choice of design. Its structure is built directly off the vertical slope of the existing roof to form a box. The roof is pitched at a slight vertical angle to allow for water to drain down.
The Advantages:
Maximising space – It provides the most amount of internal space. Without a pitched roof, a flat roof dormer allows you to have full head height at every point in the room. Meaning no wall is unable to store/be used because of a slanted roof.
Affordable – Its growing popularity makes it another type of dormer that is high in demand for its modern style/space-enhancing features.
Undemanding Design – Fortunately, this conversion is the simplest of the three, making the design and build stages run smoother. This is because the design doesn’t require drastic changes to the existing structure of your loft. Additionally, a flat roof dormer allows you to install typical windows.
Get in touch
Contact ABM for expert guidance on picking the right dormer for your loft conversion. Our team of experienced architects will be able to inform you based on your individual/projects wants and needs.