Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Ashley Heath

Getting the old boards down. Everything comes off before anything goes back: the fascia along the front of the rafter ends, the soffit tucked underneath it, and the bargeboard climbing the gable to the verge.

On the 1970s and early 1980s houses out in Ashley Heath all three are painted softwood, and half of them already wear a plastic cover board that somebody nailed on in place of doing the job. That cover board is the problem. It stops the timber drying and it leaves your gutter brackets fixed to something with no strength in it. Capping is honest enough over dry, firm wood, and we will happily tell you when that is what you have. Over rot, no.

The timber nobody sees. Once the fascia is down, the ends of the rafters, the plate they bear on and the tilt fillet that kicks the lowest course of tiles up all come into view. Spongy rafter ends are sawn back to sound wood and new lengths let in. Then a fresh felt support tray goes under the underlay so it finishes over the front of the board and every drip lands in the channel rather than down the wall. Tiles disturbed on the way go back down to the pattern set out in BS 5534.

Choosing the run, not just replacing it. Profile matters on a bungalow. Half round is the default and it is fine on a modest roof. Ogee sits flat against a square edged fascia and looks more like the older timber it replaces. Deepflow simply holds more, and on a long hipped roof tipping everything into one length that is the difference between a gutter that copes in November and one that empties over your path. Everything metal or moulded goes with it: brackets at proper centres, unions, outlets, hopper heads, downpipes, shoes. The boards go up in uPVC. Then the whole length is set falling to the outlet, because a run put up dead straight looks lovely from the drive and stands full of water for twelve months.

Air at the eaves, and the jobs that stay small. While the soffit is off, it costs almost nothing to put eaves ventilation in. A vented soffit, or an over fascia vent where the board is too shallow for one, holds the air gap open above your loft insulation and takes the condensation argument off the table. Plenty of roofline faults never need a replacement, mind. One dripping union, a bracket that has torn out of soft wood, a snapped downpipe, an outlet stuffed with moss and debris washed off the tiles, paint peeling on a bargeboard that is otherwise fine. Those get refixed, re-hung or swapped piece by piece. Wasps are seen to first, and a nest behind a soffit is closed up only once the birds have finished with it.

Metres of fascia tell you little on their own. The corners in the run and the timber behind it decide the day.

Every hip is a corner. A hipped bungalow turns an external corner at each hip, and often returns round a porch or a bay as well. Corner joints, stop ends, outlets and hoppers all go on by hand, so a busy run takes far longer than a plain gable of the same length.

Rot you cannot see yet. Painted timber on Ashley Heath bungalows of this era often hides soft wood. The rafter feet and the wall plate only show their condition once the old board is off, and a plastic cover board fitted over the top buries the problem, so we strip back to the timber.

Letting the roof breathe. Plenty of 1970s roofs were built with no airflow at the eaves. Vented soffit, or a vent strip over the fascia, gives the loft air, which matters more once a bungalow loft is well insulated.

Reach and fall. A tower covers most single storey work and a taller gable goes on scaffold, both set out under the HSE roof work guidance and shown as their own line. A conservatory under the back gutter has to be bridged. The new gutter goes up with a steady fall towards each outlet so it empties.

Whoever else prices an Ashley Heath roofline, find out whether they will strip the old boards or clad over them, what their plan is if the rafter feet are soft, and whether their figure covers the gutter, outlets and downpipes as well as the boards.

Just over half the homes in Ashley Heath are bungalows, and that changes this job more than it changes any other trade. A bungalow spreads the same floor area over a much bigger footprint, so there is far more eaves for the size of the house, more corners to turn, and often a hip on all four sides feeding one long gutter run. You are buying metres of fascia and gutter here, not rooms.

Access works in your favour on an Ashley Heath bungalow. Most of it comes off a tower or a ladder rather than a scaffold, and nothing stands over your garden for a fortnight. A low eaves is also easy to keep an eye on. Stand under it after heavy rain with a torch and look up: a stained soffit, a fascia that gives under your thumb at the corners, or daylight where the board meets the wall all say the same thing, and it is cheaper dealt with then than after the gutter has pulled the brackets out of the timber.

Our base at 80a Wolverton Road in Boscombe is 7.1 miles from Ashley Heath, and we replace fascias, soffits and gutters on houses and bungalows through St Leonards, St Ives, Ringwood and Verwood. Dorset Council is the council for this side of BH24.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales with company number 15471719, which anyone can look up. Thomas Hannen runs it and comes to measure and price every roofline himself. We hold a 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade from a verified customer. You pay nothing for the visit or for the written quote, and the quote is itemised. Before you book a visit in Ashley Heath, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Ashley Heath need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.