Fascias, soffits and guttering in Langton Matravers
Rusted cast iron, soft fascias and gutters pulled off the weather side, put right on Langton Matravers cottages and houses. Free visit and written price.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Rooflines here rarely fail evenly. One elevation takes the weather off the sea and gives out years before the sheltered side, so the sensible job is often one run renewed properly and the rest left alone. We price it that way rather than selling you the whole house.
The calls out of this village follow a pattern. A cast iron gutter weeping at a joint and staining a stone elevation. A timber fascia where the paint has blistered and the board underneath has gone soft. Or a run that has pulled away from the wall on the exposed side after a winter of gales. None of it can be judged from the lane. So we come out, get up to the eaves, take a length down and look at the timber behind it, then put repair and renewal side by side in a written itemised price.
The work
What a roofline on this coast is up against
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 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 here 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 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.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: access, the length of each run, stripping the old boards and gutter, the fascia, soffit and any bargeboard, the gutter, outlets and downpipes, and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Taking a fascia, soffit or gutter off and putting the same thing back is repair and maintenance, so no planning application and nothing for building control. Langton Matravers has its own conservation area and 50 listed entries, and there appearance is controlled: cast iron or painted timber swapped for white plastic on a visible elevation is a planning question, and on a listed building you need listed building consent from Dorset Council before anything changes.
Cost
What decides the price of a roofline
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 stone cottage with the eaves right over the lane, a bungalow with a border under the run, and a two storey house on a sloping plot are three different platforms before a board is touched. 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.
If a section has come away
A gutter hanging off, or a fascia gone through
Ring rather than use the form. A length of gutter pulled off its brackets, a downpipe snapped at the bend or a fascia soft enough to put your hand through goes to the front of the queue, because the next heavy rain runs straight down the wall and into the brickwork. The first visit is about getting it supported and discharging somewhere sensible, and we price the run properly once we can see how far the rot goes. Say on the phone which elevation it is, because the seaward side of a house here is the one that puts water into the wall fastest once the gutter has gone. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
The seaward elevation ages twice as fast
Under three kilometres from the water, salt reaches this village on the wind and settles on everything. It does not attack the gutter or the board directly. It attacks the metal, and it keeps surfaces damp between showers so the corrosion never stops. That is why the elevation facing the weather is usually the one that fails: the screws holding the brackets give up, the nails fixing the fascia to the rafter feet rust to nothing, and the run comes away while the timber it was fixed to is still sound.
Two things follow from that. When you get a quote, ask what the fixings are, because stainless or silicon bronze on the exposed elevations costs very little more and is the difference between a roofline lasting and coming down again. And do not assume the whole house needs doing because one side has failed. We look at every elevation, tell you which are sound, and price them separately so you can do the weather side now and the rest when it needs it.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Langton Matravers, Worth Matravers, Kingston, Harmans Cross, Swanage and Corfe Castle, broadly BH19, 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.
Questions
Langton Matravers questions we get asked
Our gutter brackets are fixed to the rafters, not a fascia. Can it still be renewed?
Yes. The brackets come off with the old run, the rafter feet get checked while they are exposed, and the new gutter goes back on rafter brackets or on a new fascia. On an older cottage we would usually keep it as it is.
Can the cast iron be repaired instead of replaced?
Usually, if the barrel is sound. It comes down, gets cleaned back, the joints are re-bedded and the lengths are primed and painted. That keeps you clear of the conservation area question as well, since nothing about the appearance changes.
Why has one side of the house failed and the other looks fine?
Because the weather side gets the salt and the driving rain and the sheltered side does not. It is normal here for one elevation to need renewing while the others have years left, and we will tell you honestly when that is what we find.
Do we need consent to change to plastic?
Inside the conservation area, changing the material on an elevation people can see is a planning question rather than a repair, and on a listed building it needs consent. Ask the council first. We will price the like for like option alongside so you can compare.
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Tell us which elevation has gone. Thomas comes out, checks every run, and puts repair and renewal in writing side by side. Nothing to pay for the visit or the quote.