Fascias, soffits and guttering in Holt

Where the water actually goes. On a village property the roofline is only half the system. The other half is what happens at the bottom of the downpipe, and out along these lanes that is rarely a public sewer. It is a gully, a ditch, or a soakaway in the garden. A shoe pointed at the wall, a pipe stopping a foot above a blocked gully, or a soakaway that has silted up and now backs water under the path will all leave staining and damp at the base of a wall long after the gutter above it has been sorted out. We follow every downpipe to its end and say what we find.

The boards, and what is behind them. Fascia, soffit, bargeboard and gutter come off together rather than getting clad over, because until they are down nobody can see the rafter feet, the wall plate or the bottom course of tiles. Rot almost always starts at the top edge of the fascia, where the felt has torn or shrunk back over the eaves and let water run behind the board instead of dripping into the gutter, so a felt support tray goes in as standard and a tilt fillet lifts the bottom course to the right angle. A soft rafter foot gets a sound end spliced on. Tiles disturbed at the eaves or verge are refixed the way BS 5534 expects. Where the timber is genuinely sound, dry and firmly fixed, capping the face and lining the soffit is a fair, cheaper job and we will say so.

Choosing the new run. uPVC on most houses, in white, black or woodgrain, because it never needs painting and holds a bracket screw properly. Timber on the older cottages, especially where a moulded profile matters, primed on all four faces. Cast iron repaired, re-bedded and repainted rather than removed where it survives. Aluminium where the run is long and straight and you would rather have no unions in it at all. Profile is a decision too: half round handles an ordinary roof, but a steep or wide slope in driving rain sheds faster than half round will carry, and ogee, square or deepflow take the extra volume before it goes over the back of the gutter.

Hanging it and closing it up. New brackets at proper centres, the run falling to the outlet, and every union resealed. A gutter hung level looks perfectly straight and stands full of water twelve months a year, which is what perishes seals and softens a board from behind. Downpipes get clipped straight and finished with a shoe. Then the eaves: soffit vents in the new boards, or an over fascia vent where the soffit is too narrow, with the air gap over the loft insulation left open, because a blocked eaves gap turns into condensation on the insulation rather than a dry roof space. Approved Document F sets the ventilation figures. Open corners get sealed so birds and wasps cannot nest behind a soffit, and we point out any outlet blocked with moss and debris off the tiles.

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 lane cottage with the eaves under overhanging branches, a farmhouse with one long unbroken gable, and a newer house with a bay and a porch to work around are three different jobs before a board comes off. 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.

This is one of the few pages on this site where the honest answer about permission is that there is nothing to arrange. Holt has no conservation area of its own. Green Belt covers a good deal of the parish, but Green Belt is about new building and extensions, not about renewing a rotten fascia, and it does not touch a like for like roofline job at all. There is nothing to apply for, no building control involvement, and the material, profile and colour of the new run are simply your choice.

There is one exception, and it is worth checking before you order anything. There are listed entries scattered around the parish, mostly older cottages and farm buildings rather than the newer housing, and where a building is listed the boards and the rainwater goods are part of what is protected. Taking painted timber and cast iron off a listed cottage and putting plastic up instead needs listed building consent first, and doing it without is an offence rather than a technicality. If you are not sure whether yours is on the list, we will check it as part of the free site visit and tell you before anything is priced.

We cover Holt, Holt Heath, Furzehill, Broom Hill and Wimborne, broadly BH21, under Dorset Council. 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.