Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Furzehill

Testing the boards. A fascia rots from behind, so the paint on the front is a poor guide. It fails at the end of a length, either side of a joint, and along the top edge where the felt has been dripping onto it for years.

Peeling and blown paint says look harder; a screwdriver sinking into the timber settles it. A soffit fails on its hidden face, and one hanging clear of the wall or worked open by a bird has usually been wet for years. Bargeboards and gable capping are weathered from the side, not soaked, so they normally last longest.

Strip or cap over. Capping over means screwing plastic onto the old timber. On a dry, sound, firmly fixed board that is honest work and we are glad to quote it. On soft timber it is a cover, not a cure, because the rot carries on underneath and the new fixings hold into nothing. We take the boards off as standard. It is the only way to look at the ends of the rafters and the plate they bear on, to splice out anything soft, to reinstate the tilt fillet under the bottom course of tiles, and to fit a felt support tray that carries the underlay past the fascia so it empties into the gutter. The bottom course of tiles goes back fixed as BS 5534 expects, not simply laid on.

Plastic at the end of its life. A uPVC run fitted in the nineties is now old enough to have gone chalky and brittle. The union seals harden and weep, the brackets lose their grip so a length is left sagging in the middle or dropped clean off at one end, and a leaking joint that has run all season leaves a green stripe down the wall beneath it. Cast iron on an older Furzehill property is a different matter, and we would sooner repaint it than remove it. Once a run is that far gone, refixing it is throwing good money after bad and we will say so.

Getting the run right. This is where most overflowing gutters are actually solved. A line goes up first, the run drops steadily to the outlet, and the brackets go in close enough that no length can bow, each taking a screw into solid timber. Where a long or steep slope empties into one short length we will say so and price a deepflow profile, which carries more than half round of the same width, or a second outlet. Ogee is the square fronted option that sits flat to the fascia. Outlets, unions, hoppers, downpipes and shoes are each itemised, not lumped in, and the finished run is filled from one end and watched out at the shoe. Each downpipe is refixed with fresh clips and made to deliver into a gully or a soakaway, because rainwater discharging at the foot of a wall puts damp and staining into the brickwork, and driving rain will already be working at the back of the gutter without any help.

Air and nuisance. With the soffit down it costs very little to sort the eaves ventilation, and it is the part of the job that pays you back. Soffit vents, or an over fascia vent where the boards are shallow, hold an air gap open over the loft insulation, and that is what keeps condensation off the felt and the roof timbers dry. Closures and mesh go on with the new boards and at the verge, since the space behind a soft soffit is where birds and wasps set up, and moss and debris off the tiles is what silts an outlet until it is blocked.

We do not work to a rate per metre. A run that turns round a bay window takes far longer than the same length along a flat gable.

The house type. A Furzehill bungalow with a deep overhang has a lot of soffit for its size but is quick to reach. A detached house with a bay under the front run and a porch roof tying into the same gutter has corners, returns and more brackets. A flat in a shared building needs the freeholder or managing agent to instruct the whole elevation, not one owner's section. The work at height rules are why the tower or scaffold is a priced line.

What is behind the boards. Furzehill timber fascias from the late sixties and seventies have often been painted many times and hide soft rafter feet or a wet wall plate. Nobody can see that until the old board comes off. Capping over with plastic hides it, which is why we take the boards off instead.

The drainage. Outlets, hoppers and downpipes are counted and priced separately, along with resetting the fall so the gutter empties, and working round a satellite dish or a service cable. On Furzehill's slow-draining ground, where a downpipe discharges also matters, because water dumped beside a foundation can make it move.

Before choosing, find out from the other quotes whether they remove the boards or clad over them, what they will do if the rafter feet turn out rotten, and whether every gutter and downpipe is new or only the fascia.

From our base in Wolverton Road, Boscombe, Furzehill is a trip of about eight miles, and we work across Holt, Colehill, Wimborne Minster, Broadstone and Verwood, broadly BH21. For Furzehill, Dorset Council is the council for planning and building control.

The work is done by Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company number 15471719, registered in England and Wales. Thomas Hannen runs it and comes out himself to price your fascias and gutters. A verified customer scored us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. You pay nothing for the visit or for the written quote, which itemises every run. Before you book a visit in Furzehill, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Furzehill 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.