Fascias, soffits and guttering in Lover

Four materials, four different answers. On an older cottage the fascia is softwood and the gutter is cast iron. On the post-war houses it is softwood and half round plastic. On the newest it is uPVC throughout. Cast iron that is still sound is worth rubbing down, re-bedding the joints and repainting rather than removing, because it outlives anything that would replace it. Timber boards get primed on all four faces before they go up and last well if the water is kept off them. uPVC never needs painting and takes a bracket screw far better than tired softwood. Aluminium is worth a price on a long straight eaves because it can be formed in one length with no unions at all.

Why the boards come off. Fascia, soffit, bargeboard and gutter are stripped rather than clad, because until they are down nobody can see the rafter feet, the wall plate or the bottom course of tiles. On older roofs those are the parts that decide the job. Rot starts at the top edge of the fascia where the felt has torn back over the eaves, so a felt support tray goes in as standard, with a tilt fillet lifting the bottom course to drip into the gutter rather than behind it. A rafter foot that has gone soft gets a sound end spliced on rather than being packed and hoped for. Anything lifted at the eaves or verge is refixed the way BS 5534 expects. Where the timber is genuinely sound, dry and firm, capping the face and lining the soffit is a fair job at a lower price, and we will tell you when that is what you have.

Reading the run. A board soft enough to take a screwdriver, paint peeling and blown in patches, a length that has dropped between brackets, a gutter pulled away from the wall, a leaking joint at a union, or an overflow in a downpour when the run is clear. That last one is fall or profile rather than blockage. Half round copes with an ordinary roof, but a long steep slope in driving rain sheds more than it will carry, and ogee, square or deepflow hold more before the water goes over the back of the gutter and down the wall.

Putting it back. New brackets at proper centres, the run falling to the outlet, unions resealed and downpipes clipped straight with a shoe so the water discharges into a gully instead of at the footings. Level looks tidy and stands full all year, which is what perishes seals and keeps timber wet from behind. Hopper heads are checked, staining down a wall is traced to whichever pipe caused it, and the eaves are put right while everything is open: soffit vents in the new boards, or an over fascia vent where the soffit is too narrow, and the air gap over the loft insulation left clear so you get a dry roof space rather than condensation. Approved Document F sets the ventilation figures. Open corners are closed so birds and wasps cannot nest behind a soffit, and any outlet blocked with moss and debris off the tiles gets pointed out.

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 forest edge cottage with low eaves over a hedge, a Victorian pair with one long straight gable, and a modern detached house with a bay window under the front run 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.

A good share of the housing around Lover and Redlynch predates the First World War, and an old roof behaves differently at the eaves. The rafters are often not machine cut and not all the same depth, so a new fascia has to be packed and lined to a straight edge rather than simply screwed on. The wall plate sits on a solid wall that has to breathe, and where a cottage has damp at eaves level the cause is as often a leaking gutter joint above it as anything in the wall itself.

The temptation on a house like that is to strip everything and put white plastic up, because it is quick and it is cheap and it never wants painting. On a period cottage it is usually the wrong call, and not only on looks. Cast iron that has been kept painted has decades left in it, and the moulded timber profiles under it are part of what the building looks like. Our advice is to repair what is sound, replace only what has actually gone, keep the profile when you do, and put the money you save into fixing whatever let the water in behind the boards in the first place. If plastic is the right answer for a rear elevation, we will say that too.

We cover Lover, Redlynch, Morgan's Vale, Nomansland and Landford, broadly SP5, where the New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority. 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.