Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Longham

The decision on the boards. The edge of a Longham roof carries the fascia, the soffit and the bargeboard: the fascia carrying the channel, the soffit sealing the underside of the overhang, and the bargeboard following the gable up to the verge.

Late sixties and seventies houses out in Longham have them in painted softwood, and a fair number are already wearing a cover board that was fitted instead of a repair. Our default is to take everything away. Cladding traps moisture against the timber, and the brackets that follow have nothing worth screwing into. Where the wood is dry and firm, capping is a reasonable saving and we will point that out. New boards are uPVC.

The decision on the run. Size and shape are worth a conversation, not a guess. Half round is the ordinary answer. Ogee, with its flat rear face, sits neatly against a square edged fascia. Deepflow moves considerably more water and earns its place on a wide hipped roof where everything drains into a single length. Whatever the choice, the brackets, unions, outlets, hopper heads, downpipes and shoes are replaced as a set and the length is hung falling towards its outlet. Put up level it looks straight from the drive and stands full of water every month of the year. Cast iron barely features on these Longham streets, while aluminium is worth a figure on a long exposed elevation.

What the strip reveals. With the fascia away, the rafter ends, the plate beneath them and the tilt fillet raising the first row of tiles are all open to inspection. Damp ends are cut off and made good. A felt support tray then carries the underlay across the front of the board so that the water it sheds falls into the channel. Tiles disturbed getting there are refixed to the pattern in BS 5534. We also trace the pipe to the bottom, since one emptying onto a border instead of into a gully or a soakaway is what keeps the wall behind it damp.

Air, and the work that stays small. A soffit coming down is the cheapest opportunity you will get for eaves ventilation. Vented panels, or over fascia vents where the board is shallow, keep an air gap open above the loft insulation, and without one the condensation gets blamed on the roof every February. Not everything needs the full treatment either. A weeping joint, a perished union, a bracket dragged out of soft wood, a snapped downpipe, an outlet solid with moss and debris off the tiles: those are refixed, re-hung or swapped alone. Wasps come first, and nesting birds get their gap sealed once the nest is empty.

A metre of fascia is not a fixed thing to price. Where it runs, and what sits behind it, decides the time.

Roofline against house size. A bungalow has eaves on every side, and a hipped one has corners at each end. That means more joints, more external angles and more soffit per room than a two storey house of the same floor area.

What comes off. Original painted timber fascias are often sound along the middle and punky at the joints. We strip the old boards and never clad them in plastic, because cladding hides rot in the rafter ends instead of curing it. If a soffit proves to be asbestos cement, careful removal is its own line.

The platform. Single storey eaves are reached from a tower. A two storey gable, a run above a conservatory or a bay in the way means building a platform round the obstacle, and the work at height rules are why that cost is shown openly.

Rainwater. Outlets, hoppers and downpipes are counted individually, and the gutter is hung to a fall, never dead level. On Longham's clay, where each downpipe empties matters, because water dumped at the foot of a wall can move a foundation.

Ask the other quotes: are the boards coming off or being covered? What happens if the rafter ends are rotten? Is the guttering new too, or only the fascia?

A lot of the detached houses around Longham have had something added at the back: a conservatory, a sun room, a single storey extension or a bay that pushes out under the eaves. It makes a difference to a roofline job that people do not expect.

The platform has to be built around the glass rather than over it, which takes longer to set up than a clear elevation, and the old gutter and boards have to come down in shorter lengths so nothing is dropped through a roof panel.

There is a water question with it as well. Where an extension was added, the original downpipe was often moved or shortened, and a good number now discharge onto a conservatory roof or into a gutter that was never sized to take a second run. That is what causes the overflow at one corner every time it rains hard, and no amount of clearing will change it. If that is your house, say so when you ring, because it changes both the access and where the water should be going once we are finished.

We are based in Boscombe, 4.7 miles away, and we cover the village and the BH22 roads around it, including Hampreston, Ferndown and West Parley. Dorset Council is the authority for all of it. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales as company 15471719. Before you book a visit in Longham, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Thomas Hannen runs the business and walks your roofline with you before he writes a figure down. One verified customer on Checkatrade scored us 10 out of 10. You pay nothing for the site visit or for the written quote, which is itemised run by run.

Most repairs in Longham 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.