Fascias, soffits and guttering in Bearwood
Rotten and capped fascias, dropped gutters and sagging soffits renewed across the Bearwood estates. Free site visit and a free itemised written price.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On the Bearwood estates the gutter is usually still sound and it is the fixings, the joints and the board behind it that have gone. That is a roofline job, not a roof job, and it is priced by the run rather than by the house.
Three calls come out of these streets more than any other. A gutter that has dropped at one end and now pours over the joint every time it rains. A soffit sagging away from the wall with a gap you can see daylight through. And a fascia that was capped in plastic years ago, where the capping is still white and the timber behind it has turned to sponge. None of that shows properly from the pavement. We put a tower up, take a length of gutter down, and get a screwdriver into the board so you know what you are dealing with before anyone talks about money. What comes back is an itemised written price, run by run.
The work
Where an estate roofline gives up first
The parts, and which of them fail. Fascia, soffit, bargeboard and capping on the timber side. Gutter, outlets, unions, brackets, downpipes and shoes on the water side, with a hopper where a higher roof drops into a lower one. On houses of this age the gutter often has years left in it while the clips have gone brittle, the union seals have perished and the brackets have worked loose in a board that no longer holds a screw.
Reading the run. Push a screwdriver into the fascia behind the gutter. If it sinks in, the board has rotted and nothing screwed to it will stay put. Then sight along the length: a run that dips in the middle has lost its brackets or its fall, a run leaning out at the top has pulled away from the wall, and a joint that drips only in heavy rain is a perished seal rather than a blockage.
Capping, and when it is honest. Cladding over an old timber fascia looks smart on the day, and it is only right where the timber underneath is dry and firm. Over a soft board it seals the damp in, and the first you know is brackets tearing out. We take the old boards off so the rafter feet, the wall plate and the felt support tray can be seen, the tilt fillet reset and the underlay dressed to drip into the gutter.
Material and profile. Most of these houses take uPVC and it is the sensible answer. Timber suits a painted frontage, cast iron is worth repairing where it is original, and aluminium earns its place on a long unbroken run. The square profile that came with the estates carries less water than it looks like it should, so where a big rear slope drains into one short length we will move you to an ogee or a deepflow rather than hang the same size again.
Keeping the eaves breathing. New soffits must not seal the loft up. Soffit vents or over fascia vents preserve the air gap, and closing it off is how a sound roof space turns damp in one winter, which is what Approved Document F is written around. Done properly the same detail shuts out the birds and wasps that nest behind a gapped soffit.
Where the rainwater ends up. Every downpipe has to discharge somewhere sensible: a back inlet gully, a soakaway, or a shoe onto a channel away from the wall. A shoe aimed at the house puts water into the brickwork and driving rain does the rest, so you get damp inside and a green stripe of staining outside. Blocked outlets, debris and moss off the tiles pack the same corner every autumn.
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.
Taking off a fascia, soffit or gutter and putting the same thing back is repair and maintenance, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control. Bearwood has no conservation area over it and only three listed entries near the settlement, and the council's list of conservation areas if you want to check your own address. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council is the authority here, and for an ordinary house on these estates there is nothing to apply for.
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 semi on a corner plot, a terrace where the run carries on over next door, and a detached with a conservatory under the back eaves are three different platforms 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. Bearwood is one of the closest parts of the patch to us, so a length hanging over a front path here gets looked at quickly rather than booked in for a fortnight's time. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
On a terrace the gutter is not only yours
Most of Bearwood went up in one go and the roofline went up with it, so everything here is the same age. On the terraces that matters twice over, because the gutter does not stop at your boundary. It runs continuously across the block, joined over each party wall, and it usually falls to an outlet on somebody else's elevation.
So renewing your length alone means cutting into a shared run and forming a new joint above the party wall, which is exactly where a future leak shows up in a neighbour's ceiling. It can be done and we do it, but it is worth a knock on the door first. Two or three houses together share the access and end up with one falling run rather than three lengths at three levels. If the neighbours are not interested we will still price yours alone and detail that junction properly.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Bearwood, Merley, Kinson, Wallisdown, Broadstone and West Howe, broadly BH11, under Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 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
Bearwood questions we get asked
Our gutter runs into next door's. Can you do just our house?
Yes, but we form a proper joint over the party wall rather than leaving a cut end. It is worth asking the neighbour first, because doing two houses at once shares the access and gives you one run at one fall instead of two at different levels.
The gutter keeps coming loose but the fascia looks fine. Why?
Because it usually is not fine. On a capped fascia the plastic stays white while the timber behind it goes soft, and a bracket screwed into soft timber works loose every winter. Take the capping off and the answer is obvious in seconds.
Is it worth changing the gutter profile while you are up there?
Sometimes. If one short length is taking a large rear slope and it overflows every heavy shower, a deeper profile or an extra outlet fixes what cleaning it out never will. If the run is simply hung level, putting the fall back is enough.
Do we need to be at home while you do it?
Not for the roofline itself, as long as we can get to both sides of the house and stand a tower safely. We will need somewhere to put the platform and access to the back, and everything that comes off leaves with us at the end of the day.
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Get a price for your Bearwood roofline
Tell us which runs are giving trouble. Thomas comes out, gets the gutter off a section and checks the board behind it, then puts an itemised price in writing. The visit and the quote are free.