Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Cranborne
Rotten boards off, rafter feet checked and spliced, and the run re-hung to a fall. Cast iron repaired where it is worth saving.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
In Cranborne we replace and repair the whole roofline: fascia and soffit replacement, bargeboards, capping, and guttering with its outlets, hoppers and downpipes. It is the edge of the roof, the part that rots and drops, not the part that leaks.
Out in Cranborne the first sign is usually on the wall rather than the ceiling. A green or brown stripe running down brickwork or render under one particular joint. A splash mark on a path where a downpipe should be discharging into a gully. Paint blistering along a bargeboard on the gable that takes the weather. And if a run has come loose and swings in the wind, or water is pouring down the brick or render beside a door, ring 07435 839745 before the next downpour does more.
All of that points at the same handful of components, and none of it is diagnosed from the ground. We get the gutter lifted so the board behind it can be tested, look at the rafter feet where we can see them, and photograph the run. Then you get a written itemised quote with the boards, the gutter, the outlets and the downpipes on separate lines, and an honest answer about whether a repair will do.
The work
Village rooflines: cast iron, timber and deep eaves
Diagnosis first. A soft fascia is the root of most of it. The gutter brackets screw into that board, so when the timber goes the run sags, drops, pulls away from the wall and starts overflowing at the back instead of the front.
Blown paint is the early warning and a screwdriver settles the argument. Separate from that, a leaking joint at a union, a cracked hopper, a downpipe off its clips or a shoe that has gone missing are all small repairs that get mistaken for a whole new roofline, and we would rather quote you for the small one.
Old timber, and what it is fixed to. On the older Cranborne cottages the fascia is often deep, sometimes moulded, and the eaves detail is worth keeping. When the boards come off, the rafter feet, the wall plate and the bottom edge of the underlay are exposed and can be judged properly. Rot generally stops in the last few inches of each rafter and gets cut back and spliced. A felt support tray keeps the underlay dripping into the gutter rather than behind the board, and a tilt fillet lifts the bottom course of tiles so they sit as they should. Capping plastic over rotten timber hides every bit of that, so we take the old boards off. Where the timber is sound and only the paint has failed, capping is a fair job and cheaper.
Cast iron. If your older building carries cast iron, usually ogee or half round, it is frequently worth saving. The run comes down, the joints get raked out and re-bedded, brackets are renewed, the sections are wire brushed and painted and it goes back up to a proper fall. What ends a cast iron run is a cracked section or years of standing water in it. Where it has to be replaced, aluminium in the same profile keeps the elevation looking right, and uPVC in half round, ogee, square or deepflow is the straightforward answer everywhere the original look does not matter.
Hanging, and where the water finishes. Brackets at proper spacing and the run set to a fall towards the outlet. A gutter hung dead level looks tidy from the lane and holds water in it all year, which is how a new run ends up green and sagging. Then we follow the rainwater to the bottom. Most downpipes in Cranborne go to a gully or a soakaway, and a soakaway that has silted up keeps the wall damp however new the gutter above it is.
Ventilation and nuisances. New soffits get vents, or an over fascia vent strip where the board will not take them, so there is a continuous air gap through the eaves and into the loft. That is what stops condensation forming on the underside of the felt. Birds behind a lifted soffit and wasps in a gable end are common on older buildings and both get dealt with first, and moss coming off the tiles gets cleared out of the run and the outlets before we finish.
How it runs
Renewing a roofline, one run at a time
Thomas walks round your Cranborne house with you, looks up at every fascia, soffit and bargeboard, and prods the timber with a screwdriver where the paint has blistered. He sets the price himself and stays your one point of contact until the new roofline is up.
The quote is broken out: access, the length of each run, taking the old boards and gutter down, new fascia, soffit and bargeboard, then gutters, outlets and downpipes, and the waste.
Cranborne rooflines vary. A cottage with its gutter hanging over the pavement, a long low range of barns and a newer house with a conservatory under the back eaves each need their own platform, and a scaffold on the footway needs a licence from Dorset Council first. At the end of each day the gutters still drain, the ground is swept, and offcuts go in our van. Rotten rafter feet behind a board are photographed and priced for you, and no timber is added until you agree.
Renewing boards and gutters to match is repair, with no planning application and nothing for building control. Changing the material on a visible elevation is another matter. A listed building needs listed building consent before a board is touched, and Dorset Council can tell you if a conservation area covers your address before painted timber or cast iron gives way to plastic.
Cost
What the boards, the gutters and the access add up to
A roofline is not priced by the metre. Round a bay or a dormer, a metre takes far longer than one along a plain eave.
The platform. A single storey run can come off a tower. Two storeys means a scaffold, and a conservatory or bay under the eaves means building it round the glass. On a Cranborne cottage over the road, add a footway licence. The work at height rules govern all of it, so access is shown on its own.
Behind the board. Soft fascia is only the sign. What matters is the rafter feet and the wall plate behind, and you only see those once the old board is off. That is why we remove old boards instead of capping them in plastic, which just hides the rot.
What goes back. Plastic goes up quickly. Painted timber boards, or cast iron gutters and hoppers on an older house, take longer and cost more, and on a listed building they may be all that consent allows.
The shape of the house. Returns, bays, a dish or cable in the way, and every hopper, outlet and downpipe add time, which is why outlets and downpipes are listed one by one. So does setting a true fall, since a level gutter holds water.
When you compare, ask whether old boards come down or get capped, what happens if the rafter feet have gone, and whether scaffold is included.
If a section has come away
A gutter hanging loose or a fascia gone soft
Stand well back from anything dangling, and leave the ladder alone. When a gutter has dropped off its brackets, a downpipe has split, or the fascia has gone soft enough to dent with your thumb, the next heavy shower pours straight down the wall and soaks the brickwork.
Cranborne's old flint and lime walls hold on to that water. Our first visit props or refixes the run so it drains away from the house, then checks how far the rot has spread, and the lasting repair is priced after that. Roofline work is booked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. When something has come away, ring and skip the form, and if you reach nobody, we call back just as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Ask about consent before you choose a material, not after
For a village of this size Cranborne carries an unusual number of listed buildings, and it has its own conservation area over the older core. That combination changes the order in which you make decisions about a roofline.
On an ordinary house you choose the board and the profile and get it fitted. Here the first question is what your building is, because a listed building needs consent for work that affects its character, and a roofline on a principal elevation affects character in a way that is hard to argue with.
None of that stops a repair. Renewing timber in timber, repairing and repainting cast iron, splicing rotten rafter feet and re-hanging the same run to a proper fall are maintenance and they are usually the right answer anyway. What needs asking about first is a change: cast iron to plastic, painted timber to white uPVC, or a different gutter profile on a frontage. Get that agreed before anything is ordered and the job runs smoothly. Do it the other way round and you can end up taking a new roofline back off, which is the one outcome nobody wants.
Who you are dealing with
Who fits the roofline, and how to check us
Cranborne is 13.9 miles from our base in Boscombe. On rooflines we work either side of the Chase, out to Wimborne St Giles, Alderholt and Verwood, and Dorset Council deals with planning and listed building consent.
The firm you would deal with is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales with the number 15471719. Its owner, Thomas Hannen, measures your runs and prices the work in person. A verified customer on Checkatrade gave us a 10 out of 10. There is no fee for the site visit, and none for the itemised quote in writing. Before you book a visit in Cranborne, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Cranborne?
Most repairs in Cranborne 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.
| Question | In Cranborne |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Cranborne. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Cranborne Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Cranborne. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Cranborne Chase & West Wiltshire Downs National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about fascias and guttering in Cranborne
Is cast iron guttering worth keeping?
Often, yes. If the sections are sound and it is the joints that leak, the run can be taken down, re-bedded, re-hung to a fall and repainted, and it will see out the plastic that would have replaced it. A cracked section or a run that has been holding water for years is a different story.
My gutter only overflows in very heavy rain. Is that a blockage?
Not necessarily: if the run is clear and it still spills in a downpour, the profile may be too small for the area of roof draining into it. A deepflow section carries considerably more than a standard half round and it solves that without adding another downpipe.
Can you paint instead of replacing?
If the timber is sound, yes, and we will say so rather than sell you boards you do not need. Painting buys years on a fascia that has only lost its finish. It buys nothing at all on a board a screwdriver goes into.
Do you work on outbuildings and barns as well?
Yes. Long low runs on Cranborne outbuildings are often easier and quicker than a house, and they are frequently the ones putting water into a wall because nobody looks at them. They get priced as their own line on the quote.
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Tell us what the wall is telling you and we will come and look at the run above it. Thomas prices every job himself and puts it in writing, free.