Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement 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 and never get 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 Holt cottages, especially where a moulded profile matters, primed on all four faces. Cast iron repaired, re-bedded and repainted where it survives, not removed. 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.

Fascia is not priced by the metre, because a run broken by a bay and a porch takes far longer than one straight gable.

Getting to it. Eaves tucked under branches, one long Holt farmhouse gable, and a newer house with a bay to work round are all different jobs. Bungalow eaves are a tower job. A higher gable needs scaffolding, and building it round a conservatory adds hours. Working at height rules are why access has its own line.

Behind the boards. A rotten fascia usually means water has been getting at the timber behind it. You only see the rafter feet and wall plate once the old board is off, which is why we never clad over.

How many buildings. A garage, a workshop or a stable often has its own gutter. Adding it to the same visit is cheaper than a separate trip.

Where the downpipes go. Holt's ground is cohesive clay, which shrinks when a summer is dry and swells again through a wet winter. Roof water dumped at the foot of a wall ends up against the foundation, and on clay a soakaway often will not drain. Approved Document H expects it taken to a proper outfall, so all the outlets, hoppers and downpipes get their own price.

Ask any other firm whether the old boards will be removed, what they do if the rafter feet are rotten, and where the downpipes will discharge.

Fascia and gutter work in Holt is one of the few cases 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 Holt, 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 Holt, 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.

Holt sits 8.6 miles from our Boscombe base, and we also cover Holt Heath, Broom Hill, Furzehill and the Wimborne side of BH21, all under Dorset Council. Measuring every run and writing the price is done by Thomas Hannen, who owns the firm.

One verified Checkatrade customer scored the work 10 out of 10, and you can read it there. There is nothing to pay for the visit or for the quote, which is written down run by run. On the register: Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Holt, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Holt 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.