Fascias, soffits and guttering in Cadnam and Bartley

Reading the boards. A quarter of the housing here predates the First World War and a good slice more is inter war, so painted softwood is still common and so is a deep overhanging eaves. Softwood rots from the back and the top edge, where the felt has been dripping onto it, so the front can look tolerable while the board is soft the whole way through. We test at the ends of each run and either side of every joint. Where it goes, the fascia, the soffit and the bargeboard come off together.

The structure underneath. With the boards off you can see the rafter feet, the wall plate and the bottom course of tiles, which is the only honest way to price the job. Soft rafter ends are cut back and spliced. The tilt fillet is reinstated so the bottom tile lies at its proper angle, and an eaves tray is fitted so the felt finishes over the gutter and not behind it. Capping over is the shortcut we will not take on wet timber, because the rot carries on under the plastic and the new fixings are holding into nothing. Over a dry, sound, firmly fixed board, capping over is a fair job and we will quote it that way.

Gutters and pipework. Everything that hangs off the fascia is priced as its own item: the gutter run, each outlet, the unions, the brackets, any hopper, each downpipe and the shoe at the bottom. Half round is the standard profile, ogee sits square against the fascia and reads better on an older elevation, and deepflow is the one to specify where a long slope empties into a short run and the gutter overflows every time it rains hard. uPVC, aluminium and cast iron all have their place, and on the older properties we would sooner re-bed a cast iron joint and paint the run than take it down.

Hanging it so it empties. The commonest fault we put right is a run with no fall in it. Level looks tidy and works like a trough: water stands in the low spots, the outlet silts, and the timber behind a bracket never dries. So a line goes up, the run drops steadily to the outlet, and the brackets go in close enough that no length can bow, every one taking a screw into solid timber. Then we fill it from the far end and watch it leave at the shoe. Each downpipe is clipped back and made to deliver into a gully or a soakaway, because a pipe emptying onto a path puts the damp and the staining straight into the wall.

Ventilation and what lives up there. A deep soffit hides a lot. It is where birds and wasps nest, where moss and debris off the tiles collects, and where a loft quietly loses its air supply. While the boards are down we put in eaves ventilation, through the soffit or over the fascia, and make sure the air gap has not been closed off by insulation pushed too far into the eaves. Then the verge and the ends of each run are meshed so nothing gets back in, and every outlet is proved clear rather than left blocked.

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 detached house set back behind trees, a bungalow with a wide overhang, and an older cottage with a low eaves over a border are three different ways in. 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.

We cover Cadnam, Bartley, Copythorne, Netley Marsh, Ashurst and the villages along the top of the Forest, broadly SO40, under the New Forest National Park Authority. 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.