Fascias, soffits and guttering in Lytchett Matravers

Finding the rot. A fascia does not fail where you look at it. It fails behind the gutter and at the ends of a run, where it never dries out, and by the time paint is peeling and blown the board underneath has usually gone. We test with a screwdriver at every joint and both ends. Soffits go from the back, and one hanging clear of the wall at one end has been wet a long time. The bargeboard and the capping over a gable are hit sideways rather than soaked from behind, so they tend to outlast both.

Off, not over. Capping over is screwing plastic onto what is already there. On a dry, sound, firmly fixed board it is honest work and we will quote it. On soft timber it hides the problem and gives the new fixings nothing to hold. Stripping is also the only way to look at the ends of the rafters and the plate they sit on, to splice out a soft one, to reinstate the tilt fillet beneath the bottom course of tiles, and to fit an eaves tray so the felt sheds forwards rather than behind the fascia.

The run itself. Gutter, outlets, unions, brackets, hoppers, downpipes and shoes are priced item by item, in uPVC, aluminium on a long straight elevation, or cast iron repaired and painted where an older property still has it. Half round is the ordinary profile, ogee sits square to the fascia, and deepflow is what to ask for where a big slope drains into one short length and the gutter overflows in every downpour. A run hung dead level looks correct and works like a trough, so we strike a line, drop it steadily to the outlet, and put the brackets in tight enough that no length can bow, each taking a screw into solid timber.

Proving it. Once it is up, water goes in at the far end and we watch it come out at the shoe. That is also when a collapsed outlet shows itself, and when you find out that the downpipe you assumed went into a drain in fact stops short above a paving slab. Both get put right while we are there rather than written on a snagging list.

Air and nuisance. With the soffit down we put eaves ventilation in, either through the boards or over the fascia, and hold the air gap open above the loft insulation. A roof space with no air grows condensation on the felt and damp in the timbers, and it costs almost nothing to prevent while the eaves is open. Mesh and closures go on with the new boards, since the gap behind a soft soffit is a nesting site for birds and wasps, and moss and debris washing down off the tiles is what leaves an outlet blocked by November.

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 bungalow with the run over a border, a detached house with a conservatory beneath the back gutter, and a cottage on the village street with a low eaves are three different ways in. 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.

We cover Lytchett Matravers, Lytchett Minster, Upton, Sturminster Marshall, Corfe Mullen and Wareham, broadly BH16, 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.