Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Merritown

The gable end goes first. On an exposed plot the middle of a wall is rarely the problem. It is the edges and the openings, and on a roof the edge is the verge, the bargeboard and the fascia return at the corner.

Driving rain gets under a verge, wets the end of the bargeboard, and works back along the top edge of the fascia where the felt has already shrunk off the eaves. So we start every survey on the south west elevation, whatever the customer has rung about, because that is where the timber will be worst. The list of what we find there hardly changes: peeling and blown paint, a board sagging or dropped between brackets, a run pulled away from the wall, a leaking joint at a union, green staining down the render below, and an overflow in every squall from a gutter with nothing in it.

Off, and what is underneath. Fascia, soffit, bargeboard and the old gutter come off together. We remove them and never cap over them. Cladding a soft board fails from behind: the rot carries on under the plastic and the bracket screws lose their bite. With everything down we can see the rafter feet, the wall plate and the bottom course of tiles. Soft rafter ends are spliced, a felt support tray goes in where the underfelt has torn back, and a tilt fillet sets the bottom course so it drips into the gutter and not over the back of it. Tiles lifted at the eaves or verge are refixed the way BS 5534 expects. Where the board really is sound and dry, capping the face and lining the soffit is a fair job and cheaper, and we will say so.

Choosing for exposure. uPVC in white, black or woodgrain never needs painting, which matters more in Merritown than on a sheltered plot. Timber suits an older or moulded profile, primed on all four faces. Cast iron is worth repairing and repainting where it survives, and aluminium is the one to price on a long exposed run because it comes in a single length with no unions to work loose. Profile matters too: half round is fine on a small roof, but a wide or steep slope in driving rain sheds faster than it can carry, and ogee, square or deepflow hold more water per metre before it goes over the back edge.

Fixings, fall and the pipes. Brackets go on at proper centres and closer where the run is exposed, because a gutter that lifts in a gale has usually been hung too far apart. We re-hang the run so it falls to the outlet instead of sitting level, unions are resealed, downpipes clipped straight, and the shoe set so the rainwater discharges into a gully instead of at the base of a wall, where it soaks the brickwork and shows as damp inside. Hopper heads get checked, and where a downpipe runs to a soakaway we say whether it is taking the flow or backing up. Then the eaves are made good while they are open: soffit vents in the new boards or an over fascia vent where the soffit is narrow, and the air gap over the loft insulation kept clear so the roof space stays dry and free of condensation. Eaves ventilation costs almost nothing while the boards are down and a great deal afterwards. Approved Document F sets the ventilation figures. Corners are closed off against birds and wasps nesting behind a soffit, and any outlet blocked with moss and debris off the tiles is flagged up.

Nobody sensible prices a roofline by the metre, because a straight run and a run round a bay are different work.

Reaching it. A Merritown bungalow eave is tower work. A tall gable, or a gutter above a conservatory roof, needs a scaffold built around it, and the work at height rules are why access is its own line. On soft ground the platform needs boarding under it, which adds a little setting up time.

What the old boards are hiding. A fascia that has gone soft means water has been getting behind it for a while. The rafter feet and the wall plate might be fine, or might need new timber spliced in, and you only find out when the board comes off. A plastic capping over the top hides that, and we do not fit one.

The rainwater side. Water off a Merritown roof lands on ground that already drains slowly, so each outlet, hopper and downpipe matters. The gutter is set to a proper fall, and every downpipe goes into a gully or soakaway rather than onto the wall footing. Corners, returns and outlets are priced one by one.

Exposure. The south west side takes the weather, so the bargeboards and soffit vents on that side are worth doing properly.

Ask any other firm: are the old boards coming off, or being capped? What happens if the rafter feet are rotten? Is every downpipe included, or only the gutter?

Merritown is open ground, with very little between the south west and the back of a building, and that changes where a roofline fails, not whether it fails.

Wind driven rain does not fall on a roof so much as it is pushed at the edges of one: at the verge where the tiles finish over the bargeboard, at the corner where the fascia turns, and at the top edge of the board where the felt stops. Sheltered elevations on the same house can look fine while the weather side has gone completely, and water running over the back of the gutter there will stain a wall long before anyone notices the board behind it.

Two practical things follow from that. First, get somebody to look at the exposed gable before you decide anything, because a quote based on what you can see from the front door will usually miss the worst run on the building. Second, spend the extra at the edges when the new work goes up: closer bracket centres so a full gutter cannot lift in a gale, a properly bedded verge, and a bargeboard fixed back into sound timber. It is a small part of the price and it decides how the job looks in ten winters.

We are 3.6 miles away in Boscombe. Merritown is in Hurn parish, BH23, and we cover it from the same base as Christchurch and Bransgore nearby. Your council is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. You would be hiring Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Merritown, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Thomas Hannen runs it, and he looks along the boards and writes your price in person. Checkatrade shows a 10 out of 10 from one of our verified customers. Both the visit and the written quote, broken down line by line, are free.

Most repairs in Merritown 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.