Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Langton Matravers

The parts. Fascia, soffit and bargeboard, with capping where somebody has already clad over the timber. Gutter, outlets, unions, brackets, stop ends, downpipes, hoppers and shoes on the water side. On the older Langton Matravers cottages there may be no fascia at all, just brackets into the rafter feet under a heavy stone roof, and the first job is working out which of those you have.

Reading the failure. Push a screwdriver into the fascia behind the gutter: if it goes in, the board has rotted. Blown and peeling paint means water has been sitting behind it for years. Then there is the metal. Salt keeps everything up in Langton Matravers damp between showers, so mild steel screws and brackets corrode from the outside in, cast iron rusts at the back of the socket, and a run that looks sound drops off the wall in a gale. BS 5534, the code of practice for slating and tiling takes the same view about fixings in an exposed position on the roof above.

Off, not over. The old boards come off rather than getting capped. With them off, the rafter feet and the wall plate can be seen, the tilt fillet reset and a felt support tray fitted so the underlay drips into the gutter instead of behind it, then the bottom course and the verge go back. Capping over a soft board seals the rot in and the brackets tear out a few winters later. Where the timber is dry and firm and only the paint has failed, capping is a fair cheaper answer and we will say so.

What goes back up. Cast iron repaired and repainted where the barrel is sound, painted timber where it suits the building, aluminium for the look without the rust, uPVC on the newer Langton Matravers houses. Half round, ogee, square or deepflow, picked by the water the slope sheds, because a big roof draining into one short half round run overflows in every downpour. The new run is re-hung to a fall with proper bracket spacing, since a gutter hung level holds water all year.

Air, water and what nests up there. New soffits keep the eaves ventilation and the air gap into the loft, which is what Approved Document F is about, and sealing that gap gives you condensation under the felt within a winter. We check where every downpipe discharges, into a gully or a soakaway rather than at the wall, since a shoe aimed at stonework plus driving rain means damp inside and staining outside. Closed properly, the soffit keeps birds and wasps out and the outlets stop packing with moss and debris off the tiles.

Rooflines are not priced by the metre. A straight run along a bungalow and a gable on a tall stone house facing the sea are different jobs.

Behind the board. A rotten fascia is a warning. What matters is the state of the rafter feet and wall plate behind it, and that only shows once the board is off. We do not clad over old boards in plastic, because it hides the rot and keeps it damp.

The side facing the sea. Brackets, screws and gutter unions corrode faster on the seaward elevation. Better fixings cost a little more and outlast the cheap ones there.

Where the water ends up. A downpipe that empties against the wall in Langton Matravers matters more than it looks, because the water stays at the footings. It should discharge to a gully or drain, as Approved Document H sets out, not onto the footings.

Height. A tower for a bungalow, a scaffold for a gable over a road or a steep garden. The work at height rules make it a priced line.

Ask anyone else whether the old boards come off, what they will do if the rafter ends have rotted, what fixings they use on the seaward side, and whether gutters and downpipes are renewed too.

We are 11.2 miles from Langton Matravers at our base in Boscombe, and we renew fascias, soffits and gutters there and in Worth Matravers, Kingston, Harmans Cross, Swanage and Corfe Castle, broadly BH19, where Dorset Council is the authority.

This is Thomas Hannen's business: Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. He measures up each run himself before writing the price. One verified customer scored us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit costs you nothing, nor does the written quote, which breaks down every item. Before you book a visit in Langton Matravers, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Langton Matravers 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.