Fascias, Soffits & Guttering Bournemouth

Roofline and gutters

Fascias and Soffits in Bournemouth, and Guttering Repaired or Replaced

Fascias and soffits in Bournemouth are renewed when the timber behind them has gone soft, and guttering is repaired or replaced when a joint, a bracket or the fall has failed. The state of the fascia timber tells you which job you have, and it is the first thing Thomas checks on the free site visit.

If a gutter has pulled away over a path or a front door, or water is pouring down the wall now, keep everyone out from under it and ring 07435 839745 instead of filling in the form.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd strip and renew fascias, soffits, bargeboards, gutters and downpipes across Bournemouth, from Boscombe and Southbourne to Winton, Moordown and Westbourne, and on through Poole and Christchurch. Thomas Hannen comes out and prices the job himself, and the visit and the written itemised quote both cost you nothing.

Failing roofline shows in three places. A gutter dropped at one end and standing away from the wall. A soffit gone dark and spongy under a joint that has dripped for years. A bargeboard that has lost its paint, cupped and opened up at the joints.

None of those stops at the part you can see. The gutter hangs off the fascia and the fascia is nailed to the rafter ends, so we look at the whole eaves and verge, not only the board you noticed.

One check before you book. If the boards and the run are sound and the gutter is simply full of moss and leaves, you need it cleared, not renewed. That is our gutter cleaning service, and it is a much smaller job than anything else on this page.

Fascias, soffits, bargeboards and dry verge stripped and renewed
Gutter repairs: unions, brackets, falls, outlets and downpipes
Gutter replacement in uPVC or cast iron
Soft rafter feet and eaves timber repaired before anything new goes on

Request a free quote All our services

Boards first, run second The gutter hangs off sound timber, set to a fall, with the underlay dripping into it.

Which job is it

Full Roofline Replacement or a Gutter Repair: Which Do You Need?

Full roofline replacement means new fascias, soffits, bargeboards, gutters and downpipes, and it is the right job when the boards are soft or the rafter feet behind them are wet. A gutter repair fixes one failed part in a run that hangs off sound timber. Clearing is a third job again, for a sound gutter that is only blocked.

Five roofline and gutter jobs, when each is the right one, and what each involves.
The job	When it is the right one	What it involves
Gutter clearing	Boards and run sound, gutter full of moss, leaves or silt	Run and outlets cleared, downpipes flushed, water run through. See gutter cleaning
Gutter repair	One joint, bracket, outlet or pipe has failed on a sound fascia	New union or stop end, brackets refixed, fall reset, a length of pipe or a shoe replaced. See gutter repairs
Gutter replacement	Plastic gone brittle, profile too small, or parts no longer made	Whole run, brackets and outlets renewed on the existing boards, with the profile sized to the roof
Fascia capping	Timber boards dry and sound under tired paint	A uPVC sheet fixed over the old board, and a new gutter hung on top
Full roofline replacement	Boards soft, soffits dark, gutters pulling away	Boards stripped, rafter feet repaired, new fascia, soffit, bargeboard, vents, gutter and downpipes

The fascia timber decides between the first two rows and the last one. Sound board, and the job is at the gutter. Soft board, and the boards have to come off too.

Fascia replacement

Fascias, Soffits, Bargeboards and Dry Verge: What Comes Off and What Goes Back

Fascia replacement takes off failed fascias, soffits and bargeboards and puts back new boards fixed to sound rafter feet, with vents, a bird comb and a dry verge where the roof needs them. It can be one rotten board over a bay or every eaves and gable on a detached house.

Fascias

The fascia is the board stood on edge along the eaves, fixed to the feet of the rafters, and it carries a full gutter every time it rains. A full replacement board is thick enough to hold the gutter on its own. A thin capping board is not, and relies entirely on the timber behind it.

Soffits & the Eaves Gap

The soffit is the flat underside between the fascia and the wall. It shuts the eaves off from weather and wildlife, and it is where air gets into your loft, so it is never only a cosmetic panel. Swap a vented board for a solid one and the loft is shut up.

Bargeboards & Capping

A bargeboard runs up the slope of a gable over the ends of the battens and the last rafter. It takes the weather straight on, so a painted timber bargeboard cups and opens at the joints first. New ones go back in uPVC or painted timber, with a soffit under them where the gable overhangs.

Dry Verge on the Gable

The verge is the edge of the tiles along the top of the bargeboard. Old verges are bedded on mortar, which cracks and drops out and lets rain in at the gable. A dry verge swaps the mortar for interlocking caps screwed to the batten ends, and BS 5534 expects verge tiles to be mechanically fixed. With the bargeboard off, the verge is already open.

Eaves Protector & Bird Comb

Where the felt has rotted at the eaves, an eaves protector, a rigid tray under the bottom row of tiles, carries rainwater over the fascia into the gutter. Profiled tiles leave a gap above the fascia that birds use as a door, and a bird comb along the top of the board closes it without blocking the air.

Hoppers, Downpipes & Shoes

The vertical half. A hopper head takes what one or two runs throw at it, usually high on a wall where nobody looks. Below it the pipe is clipped back to the brickwork and finishes in a shoe over a gully. A rusted hopper on one clip is what stains a frontage.

A roof being re-tiled with the eaves timber and the gutter line exposed

Reading it from the ground

How Do You Know Fascias, Soffits and Gutters Need Replacing?

Soft timber, a gutter run that sags or drips at a joint, and paint that has blown off a board are the usual signs a roofline is failing. You can settle most of this from the lawn with a pair of binoculars and one test with a screwdriver.

Start with the paint on a timber board. Blistered or flaking paint means water has got in behind the film, and the paint will keep lifting however many coats go on. Green or black staining along the bottom edge says the gutter above has been running down the face of the board for years.

Then the screwdriver, which is the only test that gives a straight answer. Push the tip into the board near a joint or a bracket with ordinary hand pressure. Sound timber takes the point and stops it. Rotten timber lets it in like cork, and if it goes in to the handle then the board is finished and so is whatever is behind it. Only go up a ladder for this if it is footed on firm ground and the eaves are low.

A gutter pulled away from the wall, or dropped at one end, has lost its fixings to soft timber, and water is going down behind the run instead of along it.

Gutter repairs

Gutter Repairs: Joints, Brackets, Falls and Downpipes

A gutter repair is enough when the run hangs off sound fascia and one part has failed: a perished union seal, a snapped bracket, a lost fall, a blocked outlet, a cracked length or a split downpipe. Each is usually a few hours from a ladder or a tower, and our gutter repairs page takes every one of them in detail.

Leaking union or stop end. New seal, not sealant over the outside.
Dropped bracket or sagging run. New brackets into sound fascia at the right spacing.
Lost fall. The run comes down and goes back up to a string line.
Blocked outlet, cracked length or split downpipe. Cleared or replaced on its own where a matching part is still made.
Weeping cast iron joint. Unbolted, cleaned back, rebedded and painted.

When a gutter repair is not enough

Replace the run when the plastic has gone so brittle that lengths crack as a union comes off, when the brackets have nothing sound to screw into, when the profile is no longer made and nothing matches, or when a clear run still overflows because it is too small for the roof. A third repair on a run with any of those faults is money spent twice.

Clearing and repairing are two different jobs

A gutter that overflows because it is full needs clearing and nothing more. Clear it, run water through it, and if it still drips at a joint or spills at a low point, then it needs a repair. Our gutter cleaning service does the first and puts in writing anything it finds that needs the second.

Gutter guards, honestly

Mesh and brush guards keep big leaves out under broadleaf trees, but pine needles and moss lodge on top. A wire balloon in each outlet is often the better buy.

Gutter replacement

Gutter Replacement: Profiles, Materials and Colours

Gutter replacement comes down to three choices: the profile, the material and the colour. Half round, square and ogee are the three common gutter shapes, with deepflow for big roofs. uPVC, cast iron and aluminium are the main materials. White, black, anthracite grey, brown and woodgrain uPVC are all standard finishes now.

The three types of gutter, and deepflow

Profile is capacity, not styling. Half round is the ordinary domestic gutter and suits most bungalows and semis. Ogee has a flat back against the fascia and a moulded front, so it looks right on an older house and holds more. Square is the modern sharp edged version. Deepflow and high capacity profiles are deeper front to back, and that is what a long steep slope, a valley discharging into an eaves run or a big catchment needs.

Round or square guttering: which is better?

Neither wins everywhere. At the same width a square gutter holds a little more water, and it suits the straight lines of a modern house. Half round lets water and silt run more freely, because there are no corners for debris to sit in, and it looks right on most older houses. Size the gutter to the roof first and choose the shape second.

uPVC

Standard on almost anything fitted since the nineteen eighties. It does not rot or want painting, but it moves with the temperature, so every union gets its expansion gap, and a thin board flexes between rafters and works the bracket screws loose.

Painted timber

Still right on older houses where moulded fascias, deep bargeboards or dentil detail are part of how the building looks. Timber wants the end grain sealed, primer on all four faces and a coat every few years, or it rots from the joints inwards.

Cast iron, repaired and repainted

Heavy, long lived and repairable. Cast iron gutters and hopper heads rust from the inside, because the back of a run is the one face no brush reaches, and that rust holds water against the board behind. A sound run is worth keeping: wire brushed inside, the rust treated, a protective coat inside and gloss outside, and any weeping joints rebedded.

Seamless aluminium

Seamless aluminium is rolled to length on site and hung in one piece, so a long elevation gets a run with no joints to leak, and it will not rust.

Concrete gutters (Finlock type)

Some houses built in the decades after the war have concrete gutters: precast troughs, often sold under the Finlock name, that sit on top of the wall and form the eaves themselves. The concrete lasts, but the joints between sections were sealed with mastic that fails, and because the trough sits on the wall, a leaking joint puts water straight into the wall top and the cavity. The signs are damp patches high on the inside of an upstairs wall and staining outside under each joint.

There are two honest options. Line them: the troughs are cleaned, the joints treated and a lining laid through, which keeps the concrete in place. Or remove them: the concrete is cut away under scaffold, a timber frame goes onto the wall top to carry a new fascia and soffit, and a uPVC gutter is hung from it. Lining suits sound troughs. Removal suits cracked ones, or a house where you want an ordinary roofline that is easy to look after.

Colours, woodgrain and matching the other half of a semi

uPVC boards and gutters come in white, black, anthracite grey, brown and woodgrain, and black gutters and downpipes also come in a cast-iron-effect profile with moulded detail that reads as iron from the ground. On a semi or a terrace, match your neighbour's profile and colour where you can. Makers' profiles differ slightly, so where two systems meet at the boundary the gutter needs a proper adaptor or a stop end, not a joint forced together that leaks at the party line.

Behind the boards

Fascia Capping or Full Replacement: Is It Worth Replacing?

Fascia capping is worth it only over dry, sound, painted timber. Capping is a thin uPVC sheet fixed over the old board, and over sound wood it saves stripping a good roof edge. Over a soft board it hides the rot, and the new gutter brackets bite into wet wood. Full replacement is worth it whenever the board is soft.

Take a fascia off and you are looking at the ends of the rafters, the wall plate they sit on and the bottom course of tiles above them. The rafter feet are what the fascia is fixed to, so if they are soft the new board has nothing to hold, and where a gutter has run down the back of a fascia for years, the wall plate under them is where the water ends up. A tilt fillet lifts the bottom course so the tiles shed into the run.

Behind all of it the underlay is meant to carry on over a felt support tray and drip into the gutter, not stop short on top of the board and soak it. BS 5534, the code of practice for slating and tiling covers how that underlay is supported and fixed at the eaves, and it is the detail most often left out when a roofline is done as a facelift. If somebody has quoted capping without taking a board off, ask how they know which of the two you have.

Having the roof re-covered? Renew tired boards at the same time. The scaffold is already up, the eaves are already open, and the new underlay can be dressed over an eaves support tray into the new gutter. Doing the roofline later means paying for access twice. Our roofing services page covers the re-roof side, and if the boards are sound uPVC we will tell you to leave them.

A finished hipped roof with a new fascia board and gutter along the eaves

Sound timber underneath A new run only lasts as long as the board it is screwed to.

Ventilation

Soffit Vents, Over Fascia Vents and the Loft Above Them

Soffit ventilation is the air intake for a cold loft. Air comes in at the eaves through a vented soffit, vent discs or an over fascia vent, crosses above the insulation and leaves at the ridge, taking the moisture your house makes with it. Close that intake and condensation follows under the felt the following winter.

Seal the intake and the moisture stays: damp insulation, black mould on the rafters and eventually wet timber, all under a covering that is perfectly sound. The air gap behind the vent has to stay clear too, and insulation pushed hard into the eaves closes it. An over fascia vent sits on top of the fascia and lets air in where there is no soffit to work with.

Approved Document C, which covers condensation in roofs, sets out what is expected, and it points to BS 5250 for the detail. Renewing a fascia and a gutter like for like is repair, and not usually notifiable work under regulation 12 of the Building Regulations 2010, but that is no licence to seal the eaves up. Where a solid soffit goes on and a vented one came off, it wants vent discs or an over fascia vent putting back, and it goes on the quote.

What else lives in that gap. Starlings and house sparrows nest behind a soffit through an open joint or a hole in a rotten board, and wasps do the same higher up. A nest in use is protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, so where birds are nesting in the eaves, the boards wait until the young have gone. Book roofline work for autumn or winter where you can, and have a bird comb or soffit guard fitted so they do not move back in. Moss is the other one: a season of it washed off the tiles goes straight to the outlet, so where the covering is heavily mossed, deal with that first.

How the job runs

How Fascia and Gutter Replacement Runs, From Access to Sweep-Up

Fascia and gutter replacement runs in four steps: access goes up, the old gutter and boards come down, any soft timber behind them is repaired, and new boards and a new run go up to a fall. A bungalow or an ordinary semi takes one to two days once access is up, and a detached house with bays and a lot of pipework three or four.

Access first. An eaves run on a bungalow or a straightforward semi is ladder work, footed and tied. A three storey frontage, a long run over a conservatory, or anything where the boards are coming off, is a tower or a scaffold, and it goes on the quote as its own line. A terrace fronting the pavement, or a flat over a shop on Wimborne Road, gets scaffold, and scaffold on or over the highway needs a licence in writing from the highway authority, which in Bournemouth is BCP Council.

HSE guidance on roof work is what that judgement is made against, and ladders still have their place for short jobs such as refixing a bracket.

Stripping out. The old gutter comes down first, then the fascia and the soffit, and everything is looked at while it is open: rafter feet, wall plate, bottom batten and underlay. Where a rafter foot has gone we cut back to sound timber and splice a new end on, photographed and priced before we carry on, so it never turns up unannounced on the invoice.

Hanging the run. Brackets go on at the spacing the profile is designed for, not wherever a rafter happens to fall, and closer together on a long run. Then the fall. A gutter hung dead level holds a film of water in every length all year, and standing water kills the joints and grows the silt. It wants a steady fall to the outlet, set off a line, not by eye.

Where the water ends up. A downpipe has to discharge into something: a gully with a grating, a back inlet, or a soakaway far enough from the building to be doing any good. A shoe spitting onto a border against the wall is how a solid wall stays wet all winter.

The weather, not the season. Fascias and gutters go up all year. Boards do not come off in high wind and sealant will not go off in the wet, so a booking can slide a day.

One point of contact from first visit to last. Nothing is left open overnight, the ground is swept at the end of each day, and the old boards, the old ironwork and every nail leave with us.

What it costs

What Decides the Cost of Fascias, Soffits and Guttering?

The cost of fascias, soffits and guttering is set by how much roofline there is, how you reach it, and how much of the timber behind the boards has to be repaired. The material and profile going back, the outlets and downpipes, and the eaves ventilation come next. The timber moves a quote furthest, and nobody can see it from the pavement.

We do not publish a rate by the metre, because a metre of eaves on an open bungalow gable and a metre three storeys up over a bay are not the same metre.

What the survey is measuring

How much roofline there is. Eaves both sides, gable verges, bays, dormers, porches and any flat roof edge. Bays and dormers are short lengths with a lot of corners in them, so they take longer per metre.
How you get to it. Ladder, tower or scaffold, and whether a conservatory, a bay roof or a neighbour's garden sits under the run. Access is a line of its own, not something buried in the price of a board.
What the timber behind it is like. Sound rafter feet mean boards off and boards on. Soft feet, a wet wall plate or a missing tilt fillet mean carpentry first, priced before it happens.
What is going back on. White uPVC, woodgrain, a colour, painted timber or aluminium. Board thickness and gutter profile both move it, and so does matching the other half of a semi.
How many outlets, pipes and gullies. The vertical half is where the corners are. Hopper heads, offsets round a bay, swan necks and a new gully each sit on their own line.
Ventilation and disposal. Vented soffit or over fascia vents where the eaves need them, and the old boards, iron and nails away with us.

A four-bed detached house, worked through

A whole roofline on a four-bed detached house cannot honestly be priced as one figure, and the house itself shows why. A hipped roof has eaves on all four sides and no bargeboards, so it is one long run of fascia, soffit and gutter with four corners. The same house with two gables has shorter eaves but two bargeboards and a verge on each gable, which may want a dry verge. Add a bay with its own small roof, a garage with a flat roof edge, a back elevation over a conservatory that needs a tower bridging it, and three or four downpipes, and two four-bed houses on the same road get very different quotes. The biggest unknown is the rafter feet, which is why carpentry sits on its own line once a board is off.

What decides the cost of a gutter repair

A gutter repair is priced on the access, the part and what else the visit finds. One union at bungalow height from a ladder is a small job. The same union three storeys up over a conservatory needs a tower, and the tower is most of the cost. Cast iron takes longer than plastic. What gutter cleaning costs in Bournemouth is set out on its own page.

Reading two roofline quotes side by side

The gap between two roofline prices is almost never the plastic. Ask whether the old boards are coming off or being capped over, and if capped, how they know the timber underneath is dry. Ask whether the eaves ventilation is kept or replaced. Ask what happens if a rafter foot is rotten: a photograph and a price first, or a surprise at the end.

A new roofline is only as good as the timber it is screwed to. Access, carpentry, boards, the run, the pipes and ventilation all sit on separate lines.

Bournemouth

Flats, Conservation Areas and Listed Houses in Bournemouth

Before booking roofline work in Bournemouth, check who owns the outside of the building and whether it is protected. About half the homes near the town centre are flats, where the freeholder orders the work, and BCP Council lists 20 conservation areas in Bournemouth, where the look of a street elevation is controlled.

If you own a flat

On a leasehold flat, the fascias, soffits, gutters and downpipes outside your window are part of the structure. They belong to the freeholder, they are ordered by the freeholder or the managing agent, and they are paid for through the service charge. So if a perished union is staining the render under your window, ring your managing agent before you ring a roofer. We will still look and put what the run needs in writing, so you have something to send them.

If you sit on the residents' management company, one rule matters before you gather quotes. Where the work would cost any one leaseholder more than £250, the leaseholders have to be formally consulted first under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. That adds weeks, so start well before the winter, and ask for every run itemised, because the agent will need it. If you rent, section 11 of the same Act puts the structure and exterior, gutters included, on the landlord for most shorter tenancies, so report the fault in writing. Our page for landlords and letting agents covers the other side of that.

Conservation areas

BCP Council list the conservation areas across the conurbation, and in Bournemouth they include The Saints, Meyrick Park and Talbot Woods, Dean Park, East Cliff, Boscombe Manor, Boscombe Spa, Westbourne, Southbourne Grove, Portchester Road and Wick Village. In those streets the council controls how buildings look, and cast iron gutters, moulded timber fascias and deep bargeboards are part of that look. Before swapping them for white uPVC on a street-facing elevation, check the council's map and ask. Keeping the profile and the colour is usually the simpler answer.

Listed buildings

On a listed building the fascias, bargeboards, gutters and hoppers are part of the protected fabric, so changing them needs listed building consent first, even when the old ones are rotten. Listed building consent is decided by BCP Council, and the list entry itself is on Historic England's National Heritage List. Like-for-like repair in the original material is the place to start. Our guide to planning, building regulations and listed building consent explains how the three differ.

Near the cliff top

On a house close to the sea, salt air corrodes steel gutter brackets and screws faster than it does inland. Ask for stainless or other non-ferrous fixings on the seaward elevation. They cost a little more and outlast the plastic they hold.

Who you are dealing with

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, Based in Boscombe

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is a limited company registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, owned by Thomas Hannen and based at 80a Wolverton Road, Boscombe, BH7 6HX. Thomas walks round your roofline, tests the boards and writes the itemised quote himself.

A verified customer has left us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The site visit is free, and so is the written quote, with access, carpentry, boards, gutters, pipes and ventilation each on their own line. Scheduled work Mon to Fri, 8am to 6pm. Something urgent? Ring, and if we miss you we call back.

Across Bournemouth that means Boscombe, Southbourne, Pokesdown, Winton, Charminster, Moordown, Kinson, Westbourne and Queen's Park, and on into Poole and Christchurch. BCP Council is the planning authority for all of it, and everything we do in Bournemouth is on one page.

Questions

Fascias, Soffits and Guttering Questions

Fascia, soffit and gutter questions come down to three things: whether the timber is sound, whether the gutter is sized and hung to a fall, and whether the loft can still breathe.

How long do uPVC fascias and soffits last?

Decades, if the boards are a proper thickness and the timber behind them is sound. The plastic is rarely what fails first. The fixings, the rafter feet and the gutter joints are. Thin capping over soft timber fails soonest, because the rot carries on underneath, and white boards in full sun can yellow before they wear out.

Is it worth replacing fascias and soffits?

Yes, when the timber is soft, the soffits are dark and spongy, or the gutter is pulling away, because a new gutter on a rotten board will fail the way the last one did. No, when the boards are sound uPVC or sound painted timber: then the answer is a gutter repair, a repaint or capping, and we will say so.

Can you just replace the gutter and leave the boards?

Often, yes. A sound painted fascia carrying a tired plastic gutter is a run swap and a new set of brackets. What decides it is the timber at the bracket line. If it is soft, a new gutter on an old board will pull away as the last one did.

How long does fascia, soffit and gutter replacement take?

A bungalow or an ordinary semi is one to two days for the eaves and the verges once access is up. A detached house with bays, a dormer and a lot of pipework runs to three or four. Rotten rafter feet or a wet wall plate add carpentry, and nobody can put a day on that until the boards are off.

Why does a clear gutter still overflow in heavy rain?

Because the fault is not a blockage. The run has been hung level or has dropped away from the outlet, the profile is too shallow for what the slope throws at it, or one downpipe is taking more roof than it can carry. Resetting the fall, a deeper profile or a second outlet fixes what another clear will not.

Will new soffits stop my loft breathing?

They can, and it is the most common damage a roofline job does. The eaves are where air gets into a cold loft, so a solid soffit fitted where a vented one came off shuts the intake and the loft starts sweating that winter. New work keeps the vented soffit, puts vent discs back, or uses an over fascia vent.

Roofline by location

Fascias, Soffits and Guttering in Every Town and Village We Cover

Every page here is written around the rooflines actually on the buildings in that settlement: whether the boards are painted timber or plastic, whether the runs are cast iron ogee or half round, and what the planning position does to a swap. A page for every place we cover, grouped by area.

Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch

Ringwood, Fordingbridge and the Avon valley

Ringwood
Hangersley (also Hightown)
Burley (also Burley Street)
Bransgore
Sopley
Thorney Hill
Fordingbridge
Sandleheath
Rockbourne (also Martin)
Breamore (also Woodgreen)
Hyde (also Frogham, North Gorley and more)
Downton
Redlynch
Lover

The New Forest and the Solent shore

New Milton
Barton on Sea
Bashley
Ashley
Milford on Sea
Everton (also Hordle)
Lymington
Walhampton and Portmore (also Pilley)
Boldre (also Sandy Down, Tiptoe and more)
East Boldre
Brockenhurst
Lyndhurst
Minstead
Cadnam and Bartley

A single leaking joint or a sagging length is on our gutter repairs page, and a gutter that is only full is gutter cleaning. Moss on the tiles and green on the render sit on exterior cleaning. Water coming through the covering itself is on our roofing page, and the edge detail on an extension, a garage or a dormer is on flat roofing. Every area we cover is listed on one page.

Fascias, soffits and guttering guides

Gutter overflows in heavy rain but not light rain

Fascias, Soffits & Guttering in Bournemouth