Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Burley

Most of it reads from a Burley lane. Paint blown and flaking off a fascia. A soffit gone dark and soft. A gutter pulled away from the wall or sagging between brackets. A leaking joint at a union. A clear run overflowing in heavy rain. Sound timber stops a screwdriver; rotten timber takes it like cork, and then the board is done and the brackets have nothing to hold. Fascia, soffit, bargeboard and capping come off as one detail.

Cast iron on a Burley house is usually worth keeping. It rusts 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 length is worth taking down, wire brushing, painting internally and re-bedding at the joints, not swapping for plastic. Where a length has gone, cast iron is still made, and there are aluminium and heavy uPVC profiles moulded to the same ogee shape that read correctly from the pavement.

Boards, and the rest of the run. Painted timber wants the end grain sealed and primer on all four faces; left alone it goes at the joints and the ends. uPVC does not rot and does not want painting, but a thin board flexes between rafters and works the screws loose. The run is lengths, unions, brackets, the outlet, the hopper head, the downpipe and the shoe, and nearly every fault is one of those, not the length between them. Brackets go back at the spacing the profile is made for, unions keep their expansion gap, and the whole run is re-hung to a fall off a line.

Under a heavy tree canopy the profile matters. Half round is the ordinary domestic gutter, ogee sits flat to the fascia and holds more, and square is the modern version. Where oaks stand over a Burley roof, a run that was already at its limit spills every autumn, and the answer is a deepflow profile or a second outlet rather than a bigger downpipe. Strip the fascia and the eaves opens up. What you want to find is hard rafter feet, a dry wall plate beneath them, a tilt fillet holding the bottom course of tiles at the angle that sheds properly, and the underlay running out over a felt support tray so its drip lands in the run. BS 5534 is the code that covers it, and it is the first thing left out when a roofline is done as a facelift.

Air, water and wildlife. Every cold roof breathes in at the eaves, and the soffit is where that happens, so vent discs or a strip vent go back in, or an over fascia vent where there is no soffit to take one. Leave the air gap blocked and the trade is a warm bedroom for condensation on the felt and mould across the rafters. What is expected of eaves ventilation sits in Approved Document F. Downstairs, a downpipe is only as good as what it empties into: a gully with a grating, or a soakaway placed far enough from the footings to be doing something. Let water get behind the run and it will put staining down brick and render for years. Birds will take any open joint in a board as a way in and wasps go higher up, which can hold a job back a month, and a season of moss and debris off the tiles will pack the outlet solid.

We do not work to a rate per metre. A straight gable and a run round a bay or a dormer are different jobs. Access. A Burley cottage with low eaves at the back comes off a tower. A taller house set behind a hedge, or a long barn-style run, needs a scaffold, and a run above a conservatory means building round it. The work at height rules are why the platform is priced as its own line.

The timber behind. A soft fascia usually means water has been getting to the rafter feet. Nobody knows how far it goes until the board is off, which is why we strip it and never cap over with plastic.

Weather and trees. Runs on the south west side of a Burley house take the driven rain and wind, and runs under trees block and overflow more, so outlets and downpipes may need upsizing or moving. Every hopper, outlet and corner is priced separately.

Materials. Plastic, aluminium and cast iron differ in cost and in what they suit, and a listed frontage may need to stay in cast iron.

Before choosing, ask each firm whether the old boards come off or are capped, what they do about rotten rafter feet, and whether gutters and downpipes are renewed along with the fascia.

From Boscombe to Burley is 8.8 miles. We cover Burley itself (BH24, inside the National Park), plus Bransgore, Sopley and Thorney Hill (BH23), and Ringwood and Poulner. The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Burley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

It belongs to Thomas Hannen, who looks at every run and writes the price himself. Our Checkatrade profile shows a 10 out of 10 from one verified customer. Neither the site visit nor the written quote setting out each item costs you anything.

Most repairs in Burley 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.