Fascias, soffits and guttering in Ashley
Rotten fascias, sagging gutters and soffits coming away at the eaves, renewed properly across Ashley and New Milton. Free visit, free written price.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most Ashley rooflines we look at need the boards and the gutter renewed and nothing done to the roof above them. A soft fascia, a dropped run or a soffit coming away at the wall is a job in its own right, and the tiles usually stay where they are.
People ring here for one of three things. Water comes over the front of the gutter in heavy rain and runs down the wall. The paint on a timber fascia has blistered and the board under it is soft. Or a length of gutter has pulled away and hangs on a bracket. All three want looking at from the eaves, because what matters is the timber behind the gutter and nobody sees that from the ground. We get a tower up, take a short section of gutter off if we need to, and photograph what is behind it. Then you get an itemised written price, elevation by elevation.
The work
Boards, gutters and the bit of roof they hold up
What the roofline is. The fascia is the board on edge along the eaves that carries the gutter brackets. The soffit closes the gap underneath it. The bargeboard does the same job up a gable, sometimes under a capping. Then the rainwater side: the gutter, its outlets, any hopper, the unions, the brackets, the downpipes and the shoes. We renew all of it or any part of it, listed separately on the quote.
How we work out what has gone. A screwdriver tells you most of it. If the point pushes into the fascia behind the gutter, the board has rotted and painting it again is money wasted. Paint peeling in sheets means water has been behind it for years. A run sagging between brackets, a joint dripping once water moves, a gutter pulled off the wall, a downpipe apart at a bend: all fixable on their own. Overflow at the back of the gutter quietly soaks the brickwork.
What sits behind the boards. The fascia is nailed to the rafter feet, which sit on the wall plate. Above it sit a tilt fillet and a felt support tray, carrying the underlay over the edge so water drips into the gutter, then the bottom course of tiles. So the old boards come off, the bottom course is eased up, the tray and fillet are put right, and the new fascia goes onto sound timber. Where only the paint is tired, capping is a fair cheaper answer and we say so.
Materials, and the size of the gutter. uPVC on most houses, timber where a painted board suits the building, cast iron where it is already there and worth keeping, aluminium where a long run needs the strength. Profile matters more than people expect. Half round is the standard, ogee sits flat to the fascia and holds more, square is common on newer estates, and deepflow is for a roof that sheds more water than an ordinary run can carry. A big roof on a small half round gutter overflows every downpour however clean it is.
Air, water and wildlife. The eaves have to breathe. Soffit vents or over fascia vents keep an air gap through to the loft, and closing that off with new boards turns a dry loft damp over one winter, which is why Approved Document F matters on what looks like a cosmetic job. We check where every downpipe discharges, into a gully, a soakaway or onto a path, since a shoe aimed at a wall makes staining nobody can scrub off. Birds and wasps get in behind a gapped soffit, so the closures go back properly.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: access, the length of each run, stripping the old boards and gutter, the fascia, soffit and any bargeboard, the gutter, outlets and downpipes, and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Renewing a fascia, soffit or gutter like for like is repair rather than building work, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control, and the Planning Portal sets out where that stops. No conservation area covers the housing here and there are five listed entries near Ashley, so for an ordinary house on this patch there is nothing to apply for. New Forest District Council is the planning authority if you do need to ask.
Cost
What decides the price of a roofline
No rate per square metre, because a metre of fascia over a bay is not the same metre as one on a straight gable.
Getting to it. A long bungalow run at the back of a plot, a chalet bungalow with a dormer sitting in the eaves, and a two storey semi with a bay window are three different set ups before a board is touched. A bungalow run comes off a tower, a two or three storey gable wants a scaffold, and a run over a conservatory or a bay window means building the platform around it. The work at height rules are why the access is a priced line rather than something absorbed into a rate.
What is behind the boards. Rotten fascia is a symptom. The question is whether the rafter feet and the wall plate behind it are still sound, and nobody knows until the old board comes off. Capping over with plastic hides that instead of fixing it, which is why we take the old boards off rather than clad them.
The run, not the metre. A straight gable is quick. Bay windows, a conservatory in the way, a corner return, a run that has to be worked around a satellite dish or a service cable, and every outlet, hopper and downpipe are priced one at a time. So is putting the fall back: a gutter hung level looks fine and holds water all year.
Comparing quotes? Ask whether the old boards are coming off or being capped over, what happens if the rafter feet or the wall plate turn out to be rotten, whether the gutter, outlets and downpipes are all being renewed or only the fascia, and whether the scaffold is in the price. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.
If a section has come away
A gutter hanging off, or a fascia gone through
Ring rather than use the form. A length of gutter pulled off its brackets, a downpipe snapped at the bend or a fascia soft enough to put your hand through goes to the front of the queue, because the next heavy rain runs straight down the wall and into the brickwork. The first visit is about getting it supported and discharging somewhere sensible, and we price the run properly once we can see how far the rot goes. Ashley sits on the same round as the rest of our BH25 work, so a section hanging off a wall does not wait for a full crew before anything is made safe. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Bungalow country means more roofline per house
Ashley is bungalow country. Bungalows are 41.8% of the homes here, and a bungalow has the same rooms as a house with roughly twice the roof spread over them. Twice the eaves, twice the fascia and gutter, more bargeboard than the floor area suggests. So a roofline job here is bigger than people expect when they ring, and quoting one elevation at a time costs more in the end.
The access is the good news. Bungalow eaves come off a tower rather than a scaffold, which is the biggest line on most roofline quotes. While the soffit is off, sort the eaves ventilation. A bungalow loft is large, cold and often has insulation pushed hard over the wall plate, which is what gives you condensation under the felt once the air gap is blocked. Vents go in with the new soffit for very little and cost far more to add later.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Ashley, Bashley, Fernhill, New Milton, Barton on Sea and the lanes towards Hordle, broadly BH25, under New Forest District Council. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Ashley questions we get asked
Do the roof tiles have to come off to replace a fascia?
No. The gutter comes off and the bottom course of tiles is eased up far enough to reach the felt and the tray behind the board, then goes back down as the new fascia goes on.
Can you just cap over the boards we have?
Sometimes, and we will tell you which you are looking at. If the timber under the paint is solid, a capping tidies the eaves for less. If the board is soft anywhere, capping traps the rot behind new plastic and you find out when the brackets pull out.
The gutter overflows even though it was cleared last autumn. Why?
Usually because it is the wrong size, hung level, or the outlet is in the wrong place. A large bungalow roof throws a lot of water into a short length of half round, and a run with no fall holds water all year even when it is clean.
Will new soffits stop the damp in the loft?
They will if the damp is condensation and the eaves were blocked, which is the common case in a bungalow. If water is coming from a leak instead, new boards will not touch it, so we look in the loft before quoting rather than after.
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Fascias, soffits and guttering near Ashley
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Get a price for your Ashley roofline
Tell us which elevations are giving trouble. Thomas comes out, gets up to the eaves, checks what is behind the boards and puts an itemised price in writing. The visit and the quote are free.