Fascias, soffits and guttering in Bournemouth
Boards, bargeboards, gutter runs, hoppers and downpipes stripped off and renewed, with the timber behind them checked before anything new goes back.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most Bournemouth rooflines we are called to have gone at the timber, not at the plastic in front of it. A screwdriver pushed into the fascia beside a bracket settles which of the two you have, and that check costs you nothing.
People ring us here for three reasons. A gutter has dropped at one end and now stands away from the wall. A soffit has gone dark and spongy under a joint that has dripped for years. Or a bargeboard has lost its paint and opened up at the joints. None of those is a blockage, and none of them stops at the part you can see from the pavement.
The yard is a mile and a half away, so somebody can be on your drive quickly. We look at the whole eaves and verge rather than the one board you rang about, because the fascia is nailed to the feet of the rafters and the gutter hangs off the fascia.
The work
What comes off a Winton eaves, and what goes back on
What people describe, and what it usually is. Paint blown off a timber fascia. A soffit gone dark and soft. A gutter pulled away from the wall, or a run sagging between brackets. A leaking joint at a union. Or a clear gutter overflowing in a downpour. Sound timber stops a screwdriver; rotten timber lets it in like cork, and then the board is finished and the brackets have nothing to hold. Fascia, soffit, bargeboard and capping come off as a set.
The run itself. Lengths, unions, brackets, the outlet, the hopper head, the downpipe and the shoe. Nearly every fault is one of those rather than the length in between. We remove the old run, refix brackets at the spacing the profile is made for, leave each union its expansion gap and re-hang to a fall off a line, because a gutter hung dead level looks right and holds water all year. Profile is capacity, not styling: half round suits most of the 1980s semis here, ogee sits flat to the fascia and holds more, square is the modern version, and a long steep slope wants deepflow or a second outlet.
uPVC, timber, cast iron, aluminium. Most of what we renew goes back in uPVC, which does not rot and does not want painting, although a thin board flexes between rafters and works the screws loose. Painted timber is right where the moulding is part of how the house looks. Cast iron rusts from the inside, because the back of a run is the one face no brush reaches. Seamless aluminium is rolled on site and hung in one piece. Under three kilometres from the water, salt goes for the fixings, so non ferrous screws on the seaward elevation.
Behind the boards. Take a fascia off and you are looking at the rafter feet, the wall plate under them, the tilt fillet that lifts the bottom course of tiles, and the underlay, which should carry over a felt support tray and drip into the gutter rather than soak the board. BS 5534 covers that eaves detail. Cap a uPVC sheet over dry, sound, painted timber and that is a fair job we will do. Cap over a soft board and you have sealed wet timber out of sight.
Air in, water out. The soffit is your loft's air intake, so soffit vents or an over fascia vent go back on and the air gap stays clear. Board the eaves ventilation up and you get condensation under the felt in January and mould on timber that was sound. Approved Document F sets out what is expected. At the far end, a downpipe has to discharge into something: a gully with a back inlet, or a soakaway far enough out to be doing any good. Water at the back of the gutter is what leaves staining down a render, and driving rain finishes it. Birds nest behind a soffit through an open joint, wasps do the same higher up, and moss and debris off the tiles block the outlet first.
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 rainwater goods and boards like for like is repair, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control, and regulation 12 of the Building Regulations 2010 is where that line sits. No conservation area covers this part of Bournemouth and the few listed entries near here are churches rather than housing, so the board and the profile are your choice. Where a conservation area does apply elsewhere in the town, the council keeps the list.
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 Winton terrace with the run out over a pavement, a semi with a conservatory under the back gutter and a top floor flat above a shop are three different jobs before a board comes off. 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. We are under two miles away, so a gutter swinging on one bracket over a front door is normally looked at the same day or the next. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
On a flat, check who can actually order the work
Half the homes in this part of Bournemouth are flats and maisonettes, and on a leasehold flat the roofline is not yours. The fascia, the soffit, the gutter and the downpipe outside your window are structure, they belong to the freeholder, and they come out of the service charge. So if you are watching a perished union stain the render below it, the quickest route is finding out who manages the block rather than booking a tradesman. 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' company, one thing is worth knowing before you gather quotes. Where the work would cost any single leaseholder more than £250, the leaseholders have to be formally consulted first, under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. That moves the timetable rather than the boards, and a block of eaves and downpipes is easier arranged in spring than in November.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Winton, Charminster, Queen's Park, Springbourne, Moordown and Throop, broadly BH8 and BH9, 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
Bournemouth questions we get asked
Can I just have the front boards capped over?
Only if the timber under them is dry and sound. Over good painted timber, capping saves stripping a roof edge that has years left. Over a soft board it hides the rot and leaves the new brackets screwed into wet wood. Anyone quoting capping without taking a board off cannot know which you have, so ask.
The gutter is clear and it still comes over in heavy rain. Why?
Rarely a blockage. Either the run has been hung level or 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. A deeper profile and a second outlet fix what another clear will not.
Do you need a scaffold, or will a ladder do?
It depends what is coming off. Refixing a bracket or a downpipe clip is short duration work and the HSE are clear that a ladder still has its place for that. Stripping boards off a three storey frontage is not, and access goes on the quote as its own line.
How long does it take, and what if a rafter foot is rotten?
Days rather than weeks once access is up. A frontage with a bay, a porch and a gable verge takes longer than a straight run, because the corners are where the time goes. Soft rafter feet get cut back and spliced, photographed and priced first.
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Find out whether it is the boards or just the paint
Thomas Hannen comes out, gets a ladder on the eaves and tells you which of the two you have. The visit and the written itemised quote are both free.