Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Moordown

Painted timber boards. Most of the 1920s and 30s houses in Moordown were built with timber fascias and boxed soffits, and plenty still have them. Timber is fine while the paint holds. Once water gets in behind the gutter brackets, the fascia goes soft along the bottom edge and the soffit board sags away from the wall.

We strip the old boards off instead of capping over them, because capping in plastic hides the rot and leaves it to spread into the rafter feet and wall plate.

What we find behind. With the boards off, we check each rafter foot, splice in new timber where the ends have gone, and fit a felt support tray at the eaves so the old underlay, or the lack of one, sheds into the gutter instead of behind it. The tilt fillet and the bottom course of tiles get looked at too, because the tiles must drip into the back of the gutter.

Hips and bays. A hipped roof has eaves on all four sides, with a corner at every hip, and the front bays usually have their own short run of fascia and gutter below the main roof. Gables, where there are any, carry bargeboards. That is why a roofline in Moordown takes longer than the frontage suggests: a detached house is often two or three days once the scaffold is up.

Gutters and downpipes. The original Moordown cast iron has mostly gone, replaced with plastic half round or ogee at some point. We fit new uPVC in half round, square or deepflow, with the fall set properly to each outlet, new unions and brackets at the right spacing, and downpipes that discharge into the gully or soakaway, not onto the path. A gutter that overflows at one spot leaves green staining down the brickwork, and in driving rain that becomes damp on the inside wall, so we trace why before we price: a sagging bracket, a run pulled away from the board, or an outlet blocked with moss and debris. Cast iron or aluminium are options if you want them, priced separately.

Ventilation. New soffits come with soffit vents or an over fascia vent, so the loft gets airflow at the eaves and condensation does not build up on the roof timbers.

Post-war houses. On Moordown houses built from the 1950s onwards, the flat soffit boards can be asbestos cement. We check before anyone cuts or breaks them, and if they need to come out, that is done safely and itemised on the quote.

When we would talk you out of it. A sound, well painted timber fascia with one soft section does not need a whole new roofline. We can splice in a length and you repaint. And if the gutter is only blocked, that is a clear, covered on our gutter cleaning in Moordown page.

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 hipped detached house on a side road, a bungalow with a glass porch, and a shop with a flat above on the Wimborne Road pavement are three very different scaffolds, and the last one needs a council licence, because scaffolding on or over a highway needs a licence in writing. 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.

We cover Moordown and all of BH9, from the Wimborne Road shops down into Winton and out to Kinson, with BCP Council handling planning and building control. We are based in Boscombe, just over two miles away.

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. Before you book a visit in Moordown, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Moordown 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.