Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Fordingbridge
Repairs priced as repairs, replacement where the board behind the gutter has gone. Rafter feet checked before anything new is fixed to them.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
In Fordingbridge we do fascia, soffit and guttering replacement and repair. That is the fascia and soffit at the eaves, the bargeboards up the gable, and the gutter, outlets, hoppers and downpipes that carry the water off the roof and away from the wall.
A Fordingbridge roofline needs looking at when the gutter stops behaving, overflowing at the same spot, sagging in the middle, or leaning away from the wall so it spills at the back, or when the fascia has gone. The paint blistered a few winters ago, the timber went dark, and now the whole run is moving. If it has moved far enough to hang off the wall, or a downpour is sheeting down the brick onto the pavement, ring 07435 839745 and keep people from walking under it.
Both need the same first step, which is somebody up at the eaves rather than looking from the drive. We lift the gutter, test the board behind it with a screwdriver, look at the rafter feet and photograph what is there. The quote is written and itemised: boards, gutter run, each outlet, each downpipe and the disposal, priced separately so you can see what you are paying for.
The work
Renewing a roofline, run by run
Repair and replacement are sorted first. A soft fascia is a replacement, because the gutter brackets screw into it and nothing you fix to soft timber stays put. A run that sags between brackets, a leaking joint at a union, a cracked hopper, a downpipe off its clips or an outlet packed with moss are repairs, and they are often mistaken for the bigger job.
Water going over the back of the gutter rather than the front is its own diagnosis again, usually a run that has tipped towards the wall or an underlay dripping behind the board.
Taking the old run down. Gutter first, then fascia and soffit, and now the rafter feet and the wall plate can be seen and judged. Rot in a rafter end normally goes back only a few inches and gets cut out and spliced. A felt support tray carries the bottom edge of the underlay out over the gutter so it stops running down behind the board, and a tilt fillet lifts the bottom course of tiles to the right angle. Capping plastic over an existing rotten fascia skips every one of those checks, seals the damp in and leaves the new boards hanging on old timber. Where the timber is sound and dry it is a different story, and capping over is then a reasonable and cheaper job.
What goes back. uPVC boards with vented soffits, and a gutter chosen for the roof it is draining. Half round for a standard run, ogee where the squarer face suits the elevation, square, or deepflow where a big slope empties into one short length and a normal section simply will not carry it. On the older buildings in Fordingbridge, painted timber can be renewed in timber and cast iron is frequently worth saving, with the joints re-bedded, the run re-hung and everything repainted. Aluminium in a matching profile is the other option where the look matters.
Fall, brackets and discharge. Brackets go back at proper spacing and the run is set to fall to the outlet. A gutter hung dead level looks completely right from the pavement and holds water in it every day, which is what turns it green, drops it between the clips and eventually pulls it off the wall. Outlets, unions, hoppers, downpipes and shoes are renewed or refixed, and we follow the rainwater to where it discharges. A pipe into a silted gully or over a soakaway that stopped taking water years ago will keep staining the brickwork however good the run above it is.
Ventilation and the nuisances. Soffit vents, or an over fascia vent strip where the board is too narrow to take them, keep a continuous air gap through the eaves into the loft. Without it warm damp air sits against a cold roof and you get condensation on the underside of the felt, which people usually report as a leak. Birds get in behind a soffit that has lifted and wasps into a gable end, and both are dealt with before new boards go on. Moss off the tiles is cleared out of the run and the outlets before we leave.
How it runs
Taking the old roofline off and fitting the new
Thomas walks the outside of the house with you and prods the fascia, soffit and bargeboards with a screwdriver, because soft timber gives itself away. The written quote then prices the pieces separately: the platform, each run by length, taking down the old boards and gutter, new fascia, soffit and bargeboard, the new gutter with its outlets and downpipes, and the waste. Thomas prices it and stays the one person you deal with while it is stripped and fitted.
On the Fordingbridge estates most houses are seventies or eighties semis, detached houses and bungalows, and a tower wheeled from corner to corner reaches the eaves. A town centre house with its eaves over the footway needs a scaffold, and scaffold on the pavement needs a highway licence, which is priced separately. The old boards leave with us and the site is swept daily. Should the rafter feet turn out to be rotten behind the old fascia, we send you a picture of them with a price and wait for your answer.
Like for like renewal of fascias, soffits, bargeboards and gutters counts as repair, which needs neither a planning application nor building control. Inside the Fordingbridge Conservation Area, which covers the town centre, swapping timber for plastic or changing the colour of a front roofline is worth raising with New Forest District Council first. On a listed building, work affecting its character needs consent, and that includes a roofline on a principal elevation.
Cost
Boards, brackets and rafter feet: pricing a roofline
We price the roofline you actually have, run by run, because the length alone says little. A run round a bay window takes far longer than the same length on a plain gable.
Height and what is underneath. Bungalows are common in Fordingbridge, and their fascias are done from a tower. A two storey house with a conservatory under the back eaves needs a platform built round the glass. A town centre terrace with its gutter above the footway needs scaffold and a licence. Under the work at height rules the platform is a separate cost.
What the boards were hiding. Timber fascias from the Fordingbridge estate years have been painted many times, and some were capped in plastic long ago with the rot still inside. Capping only covers it up. We take the boards down at the eaves, look at the rafter ends and the wall plate, and deal with what we find.
The fiddly bits. Corners, hoppers, outlets and downpipes are each counted, and so is working round a satellite dish or a service cable. The gutter is rehung with a proper fall, because a level gutter never empties.
Material. uPVC, aluminium and timber boards differ in cost, and on a listed house or a conservation area front, cast iron may be the right choice.
Compare quotes by asking whether the old timber is removed or clad over, what is allowed for rotten rafter ends, and whether new downpipes come with the new gutter.
If a section has come away
A gutter hanging down or a fascia gone soft
Gutter hanging off its brackets, a downpipe snapped at the swan neck, a fascia soft enough to push a finger into: keep people from walking underneath, especially over a path, a drive or the footway, and do not climb up to it yourself.
Every heavy shower then pours down the wall and soaks the brickwork. Call us instead of using the form. That first visit takes off or props up whatever is loose and gets the water into a downpipe or away from the wall, and then we see how deep the rot goes before the repair is priced. Booked work is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Nobody answering means we are up a ladder, and we will ring you once we are down.
Worth knowing
Here the control is on the building, not on the street
Fordingbridge works differently from many of the villages around it. The town centre is covered by the Fordingbridge Conservation Area, designated by New Forest District Council, which publishes an appraisal of it, and that is what controls the look of a roofline in the older streets.
Alongside it there is a long list of individually listed buildings, scattered through the town rather than gathered in one block. So the answer to what you can do with your roofline depends on whether your house is inside the conservation area and whether it is listed, not simply on your postcode.
In practice that splits Fordingbridge in two. If your house is not listed, and most are not, the board, the colour and the gutter profile are your decision and there is nothing to apply for. If it is listed, the roofline is part of what is protected, and consent comes before a board is taken off. That includes changing cast iron to plastic, changing a profile, or altering the eaves detail. It usually does not include repairing what is there in the same material. If you are not sure which you are, we would rather find out at the survey than after the scaffold is up, and it takes one search to settle.
Who you are dealing with
Checking who is fixing your roofline
We cover Fordingbridge, Sandleheath, Alderholt, Godshill and Breamore across the SP6 postcodes, 14.1 miles from our Boscombe base. Planning and building control for the town sit with New Forest District Council, while Alderholt, over the county line, comes under Dorset Council.
The work is done by Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales under company number 15471719. The business belongs to Thomas Hannen, who comes out in person to look at the boards and price them. Checkatrade shows a verified customer's rating of 10 out of 10. The site visit and the written, line by line quote cost you nothing. Before you book a visit in Fordingbridge, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Fordingbridge?
Most repairs in Fordingbridge 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 Fordingbridge |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest District Council is the planning authority for Fordingbridge. The National Park boundary runs close by, and the Park's property map shows which side an address falls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Fordingbridge Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Fordingbridge. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Fordingbridge. |
Questions
Questions about fascias and guttering in Fordingbridge
Can you repair a gutter instead of replacing the whole run?
Very often, yes. A dripping union, a bracket that has come loose, a cracked hopper or a downpipe off its clips are all repairs, and we price them as repairs. What we will not do is refix brackets into a fascia that has gone soft, because the run comes down again within a year or two.
What is the point of vented soffits?
They give the loft somewhere to breathe. Air comes in at the eaves, moves up through the roof space and takes the moisture from the house with it. A sealed soffit stops that, and you get condensation on the underside of the felt, damp insulation and sometimes mould on the timbers.
Will the new gutter match the ones either side?
It can. Profiles are still made in half round, ogee, square and deepflow, and in a run of similar houses it is worth matching so the elevation reads as one. Tell us at the survey and we will price the profile that fits rather than the one that happens to be standard.
How long does it take from quote to job?
The visit and the written quote are free and are booked at a time that suits you. The work itself is normally a couple of days on a standard Fordingbridge house once access is up. Anything found once the boards are off gets photographed and priced before we carry on.
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Get a price for your Fordingbridge roofline
Tell us what the gutter is doing and where. Thomas comes out, tests the board behind it and puts an itemised price in writing. The visit and the quote are free.