Fascias, soffits and guttering in Poole

Reading the fault. A gutter pulled away from the wall is a bracket problem, and the bracket has let go because the fascia it is screwed into has gone soft. If a screwdriver sinks into the board behind the gutter, the run will not stay up whatever anybody does to it. Sagging between brackets, a leaking joint at a union, peeling and blown paint on a bargeboard, and water going over the back of the gutter in heavy rain are worth telling apart: one of those is an afternoon and another is a full strip.

Taking the old run off. Gutter first, then fascia and soffit, so the rafter feet and the wall plate are in daylight. Rot usually stops in the last few inches of each rafter and those get cut back and spliced. New fascia goes on to a straight line, a felt support tray carries the underlay drip out over the gutter instead of down the back of the board, and a tilt fillet lifts the bottom course of tiles so they sit properly over the run. Capping plastic over a rotten fascia hides all of that, which is why we take the old boards off rather than clad them. Where the timber genuinely is sound and it is the paintwork you are tired of, capping over is a fair job and we will say so.

Choosing the run. uPVC in half round, ogee, square or deepflow, and the profile is a decision rather than a default. A long roof slope draining into one short run sheds more water than a half round gutter will carry, and a deepflow section deals with that better than adding a downpipe. Cast iron on a frontage can often be kept: joints re-bedded, the run re-hung, the whole thing wire brushed and repainted. Aluminium is worth asking about near the water, and timber fascias can be renewed in timber if that is what the elevation wants.

Hanging it properly. Brackets back at proper spacing, and the run set to a fall towards the outlet. A gutter hung dead level looks right from the pavement and holds water in it all year, which is how a new plastic run ends up green and sagging inside a couple of winters. Every outlet, union, hopper, downpipe clip and shoe is renewed or refixed, and we follow the rainwater down to see where it discharges. A downpipe into a silted gully, or one stopping short of a soakaway nobody has looked at since the house was built, keeps staining the brickwork and the render however good the new gutter is.

Air, birds and moss. New soffits get vents, or an over fascia vent strip where the soffit is too narrow, so the eaves keep an air gap through into the loft and the condensation on the underside of the felt stops. Birds behind a lifted soffit and wasps in a gable end are both common, and both get dealt with before new boards go on. Moss washed off the tiles is what blocks an outlet, so the run gets cleared before we leave. Salt off the harbour goes for the metal rather than the plastic, so fixings on the exposed elevations are stainless.

Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: access, the length of each run, stripping the old boards and gutter, the fascia, soffit and any bargeboard, the gutter, outlets and downpipes, and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.

Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.

Renewing a roofline like for like is repair, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control to sign off. Town Centre Heritage is a conservation area and there appearance is controlled: renewing a cast iron gutter in cast iron is maintenance, taking it off a frontage and putting plastic up instead is a planning question. There are also a handful of listed entries near here, and on a listed building the roofline needs consent before it is touched. For the boundaries, the council keeps the list. In a block or a converted house the freeholder says yes first.

Ring rather than use the form. A length of gutter pulled off its brackets, a downpipe snapped at the bend or a fascia soft enough to put your hand through goes to the front of the queue, because the next heavy rain runs straight down the wall and into the brickwork. The first visit is about getting it supported and discharging somewhere sensible, and we price the run properly once we can see how far the rot goes. In town the run is often out over a pavement, so a hanging length gets the footway coned and the section supported before anything else is decided. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.

Call now: 07435 839745

Most of Poole has no control over what your roofline is made of. Town Centre Heritage does. Inside a conservation area what is protected is the appearance of the place, so the question stops being what lasts longest and becomes what the street already looks like. Renewing cast iron in cast iron, repairing what is there, or repainting a timber fascia in the same colour all sit on the maintenance side of that line. Stripping a cast iron ogee gutter off a front elevation and hanging white plastic in its place does not, and it is the sort of change a neighbour notices and reports.

That gives you three sensible routes on an older frontage. Keep the cast iron and have the joints re-bedded, the run re-hung to a fall and the whole lot repainted. Renew in cast iron or in aluminium made to the same ogee profile, so the elevation reads the same from the street. Or do the rear and the flanks in plastic, where nobody is looking, and keep the frontage as it is. If you are outside the area, none of this applies and the choice is simply yours.

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