Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Corfe Castle

Iron is often hung without a fascia. Plenty of houses in Corfe Castle carry no fascia whatsoever. The channel hangs off rise and fall brackets driven into the rafter ends, ogee or half round, bolted at every union. Iron almost never fails along a length.

On a Corfe Castle house it fails at the joints, where the bolt and the bedding have given out, and along the rear face that no brush has touched in decades. What follows is rust, a run that sags and holds water, and a stain and green growth down the stonework. The cure is to take it down, wire the rust back, re-bed and re-bolt the unions, paint front, back and inside, and re-hang it falling properly on sound brackets.

Timber. Where boards do exist, a fascia, a soffit or a bargeboard up the verge, they are lifted off rather than capped over rot, and we will not cap over a soft board. That exposes the rafter ends, the plate they sit on, and the tilt fillet beneath the lowest tiles. Soft ends are cut away and pieced solid. A felt support tray goes in so the underlay finishes over the board and its water lands in the gutter and does not soak back into the wall. Any tile disturbed is refixed as BS 5534 requires.

Plastic, and where it belongs. On a modern house at the edge of Corfe Castle, or a rear elevation nobody can see from the lane, uPVC is a perfectly sensible answer and we will say so. On a frontage it usually is not, and a cracked cast section is better matched in iron or in aluminium that reads the same from across the street. Downpipes, hopper heads and shoes are treated on the same principle, and if the pipe currently empties onto the paving rather than into a gully we would sooner put that right while access is up.

Air, and the jobs that stay small. A soffit being renewed is the moment for eaves ventilation, either a soffit vent in the panel or an over fascia vent above it, so an air gap stays open over the loft insulation and winter condensation is not mistaken for a roof leak. Much of what goes wrong on a Corfe Castle roofline is minor: a leaking joint, a bracket working loose of the wall, a length that has dropped out of fall, a downpipe snapped at the bend, a blocked outlet choked with moss and debris. Those get refixed, re-hung or replaced singly, and wasps or nesting birds behind a board are dealt with before anything is shut up.

We do not work to a rate per metre. A straight run on a newer house and the same length along a stone cottage on the street are different jobs.

The material. Cast iron costs more than aluminium, which costs more than plastic, and on the older buildings in Corfe Castle cast iron is usually the one that belongs. Timber fascia, soffit and bargeboards need priming and painting; plastic does not. Sometimes old cast iron can be taken down, cleaned, re-jointed and rehung, which is a different price again.

Behind the boards. A rotten fascia often means rotten rafter feet or a wet wall plate. Nobody knows until the board is off, which is why we remove old boards instead of capping over them.

The platform. A bungalow run comes off a tower. A two storey gable on the A351 wants a scaffold and a licence, and a run over a conservatory or a bay means building around it. The work at height rules make that a line of its own.

The fiddly parts. Each of the outlets, hoppers, corners and downpipes is counted, and so is setting the fall, because a level gutter holds water all year.

When another quote arrives, ask whether the old boards come off, what happens if the rafter feet are rotten, and whether the gutter and downpipes are being renewed or only the fascia.

People hear conservation area and assume nothing can be touched. It is narrower than that, and it is worth knowing which side of the line your house sits on.

If the building is listed, the rainwater goods are part of what is protected, and swapping a cast iron ogee run for white plastic is a change of character that needs consent first. Repairing and repainting the iron you already have is maintenance, and that is the route we would push you towards anyway.

If the building is not listed, replacing gutters and boards is usually still your own decision, with one catch worth checking. An article 4 direction can take the ordinary freedoms away street by street, and you can look your address up before anyone orders materials. What we will not do is talk you into plastic on a frontage that faces the square and then leave you arguing with the council about it.

We come out from Boscombe, about eleven and a half miles away, to Corfe Castle, Church Knowle, Harmans Cross and Kingston, which fall in Dorset Council's South East Purbeck ward, and on to Wareham and Swanage.

The business belongs to Thomas Hannen, and he prices every roofline job himself, on site. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, and company number 15471719 takes a minute to check. On Checkatrade there is a 10 out of 10 from a verified customer. Send a photo of the run first if you like. You pay nothing for the visit or for the itemised written quote. Before you book a visit in Corfe Castle, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Corfe Castle 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.