Yes, and on most warehouses it is easier than on a house. A warehouse roof is a shallow pitch of profiled sheet or a large flat single-ply deck, built on a regular structural grid, with no finished ceiling underneath and no plaster to make good. The two real constraints are height and what is stored below. Neither stops the work, but both shape how it is done and what it costs.
What a warehouse roof is usually made of
The common arrangement locally is a steel portal frame with purlins at regular centres and a profiled metal roof, either a single skin on older or unheated buildings or a built-up system with insulation between an outer and a liner sheet. Newer buildings tend to use composite panels, a factory-made sandwich with the insulation bonded between the two skins. Larger distribution units and some office and warehouse hybrids have flat single-ply or built-up felt over a metal deck.
Each of those takes rooflights differently, so the first thing a survey settles is which one you have. From the ground you can often tell: exposed fixings in visible rows suggest built-up or single skin, a very flat clean surface with concealed fixings suggests composite panels, and a parapet all the way round usually means a flat deck behind it. There is more on the sheeted case in our page on rooflights on a metal deck roof.
In-plane sheets against units on a kerb
On a pitched sheeted roof the traditional answer is an in-plane rooflight: a translucent sheet made to the same profile as the metal, laid in the same run so the roof line is unbroken and the side laps work exactly as they do between metal sheets. It is quick, it is weathertight by the same mechanism as the rest of the roof, and it puts a long even band of daylight down the building.
On a flat deck the answer is a kerb-mounted unit sitting on an upstand above the finished surface, with the membrane carried up the sides and over the top of the kerb so the waterproofing terminates above the water line. That upstand height is the whole game on a flat roof. It is what keeps the frame clear of standing water, lying snow and the silt that a large flat roof collects at the low points.
A pitched sheeted roof can also take kerb-mounted units where you want a small number of larger openings rather than a long band, but the kerb then has to be built and flashed into the profile, which is more work than laying a matching sheet.
Height changes the job more than the roof does
A 12 metre eaves height is not twice the problem of 6 metres, it is a different problem. Materials go up by hoist or crane rather than by hand. Access is a mobile elevating work platform, a mast climber or a designed scaffold rather than a tower. Fall protection is planned formally rather than assumed. Wind speed at height stops work sooner than it does at low level, so a breezy week costs days.
It also changes the units. A large sheet or a big glass unit that two people can handle on a bungalow needs mechanical lifting at 12 metres, and the lift has to be planned around whatever is beneath the flight path. None of this is exotic, but all of it is cost and programme, and it is why a warehouse quotation without a site visit behind it is meaningless.
What is underneath sets the protection plan
Racking to 9 metres full of stock, a paint line, a chilled store, an open production floor with people at benches. Each one gets a different answer. The general principle is that nothing falls into the building and nothing enters it: the opening is sheeted from below before it is cut from above, debris is contained at the source, and the area beneath is cordoned for the duration.
Where stock cannot be moved, we sheet and cover it and we work over it rather than asking you to clear a warehouse. Where a process cannot tolerate any dust at all, that usually means working when the process is stopped. Our page on how we protect a working space below goes into the method.
How much roof glazing a warehouse actually wants
More is not automatically better. Roof glazing in a warehouse is doing two jobs, cutting the lighting load during daylight hours and making the space less unpleasant to work in. Past a certain proportion of the roof area, the extra daylight buys you very little and the summer heat gain starts to cost you, particularly in an uninsulated shed with no cooling.
The distribution matters more than the total. A long band running the length of the building at the ridge or in the second sheet down gives even light along every aisle. The same area of glazing concentrated in one place gives you one bright zone and dark corners everywhere else. Racking layout is worth checking before the positions are fixed, because a rooflight directly over a solid-clad rack run illuminates the top of the rack and nothing else.
Purlins, spans and where an opening is allowed to go
On a portal frame roof, an in-plane sheet spans purlin to purlin like the metal beside it, so its position is set by the grid and there is nothing to trim. A kerb-mounted unit is different: if it is wider than the purlin spacing, a purlin has to be cut and trimmed with new steel, and that is structural work that needs designing rather than deciding on the roof.
Where a client wants a large opening in a sheeted roof, the honest first answer is often that two openings between purlins cost far less than one opening across a purlin and give almost the same light. Where the large opening is genuinely needed, we say plainly that a structural engineer and a steelwork package sit outside our scope and have to be arranged alongside us.
Condensation in an unheated shed
An unheated single skin warehouse produces condensation on the underside of the roof on cold clear nights, whether or not there are rooflights in it. The metal drops below dew point, moisture from the floor slab and from stock condenses on it, and it drips. When a new rooflight goes in, that pre-existing drip gets blamed on the glass.
Two things reduce the risk. The first is choosing a rooflight build-up that is not markedly colder than the roof around it, which on an insulated roof means a unit whose thermal performance is in the same territory as the panel. The second is not creating a cold bridge at the perimeter, which is a detailing question at the kerb and the liner. We flag at survey when a building already has a condensation pattern, because it is better established before we start than argued about after.
Doing it while the building keeps trading
Most warehouse rooflight work is done on a live building. That means a sequence agreed in advance: which bays are affected on which days, where the exclusion zone sits, how deliveries route around it, and how many openings are taken at once. We open only what can be closed the same day, and the roof is never left open overnight.
Where the operation genuinely cannot stop, weekend or shutdown working is available and carries a premium. Call 01865 704245 or email info@heritageskylightsoxford.co.uk with the eaves height, the roof type and how many units you are considering. We install VELUX, Fakro, Keylite and Roto units, installations and replacements only, and the workmanship carries a ten-year guarantee.
Helpful reading on this
Costs, comparisons and the questions we are asked most.
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