Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Post Green
Boards, bargeboards, gutter runs and downpipes renewed around Post Green and Lytchett Minster, with the timber behind the boards checked before anything goes back.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Post Green is usually a straightforward strip and refit, because most of the housing is post-war and on its second roofline at most. Check first whether your house sits in the Lytchett Minster conservation area, which takes in Post Green and the older lane, because there it controls what a run is allowed to look like from the road.
Guttering at Post Green usually needs attention for three plain reasons. A gutter that has come away from the wall at one end and now runs down the brickwork. A soffit gone black and soft below a union that has been letting water past for years. Or a timber bargeboard with the paint blistered off it and the joints opened up. If that loose gutter is now pouring water down the brickwork, or a fascia is hanging off, ring 07435 839745.
Somebody goes up on your Post Green house and puts a screwdriver into the fascia next to a bracket. Hard timber stops the point; soft timber swallows it, and that single check decides between a repair, a capping job and a full renewal. The survey takes in every elevation, the garage and each downpipe, and the site visit and the written itemised quote are both free.
The work
Estate eaves, bungalow hips and the older lane
What comes off. Fascia, soffit, bargeboard and the capping behind it, as one set, not four separate jobs. Paint blown and flaking off a timber board means water is already behind the film. Dark growth on the face of a fascia says water has been coming over the front of the run and washing down it.
Where a length has pulled away from the wall, or a run is sagging between its brackets, the fixings have lost their grip in soft wood, and the water is now going down behind the gutter rather than along it.
What goes back. Gutter lengths and their unions, brackets, the outlet, a hopper head where the wall is tall enough, then the downpipe and the shoe. The old run comes off whole. We do not patch the middle of it. Brackets are set at the spacing that profile was made for, each union keeps room to move, and the fall is pulled off a string line. Hang a gutter flat and it will look perfectly correct from the lawn while standing water in every length twelve months a year, which is what finishes the seals. Nearly every gutter fault is one of those parts rather than the length between them.
Profiles and materials. Half round suits most of the bungalows and semis in Post Green, ogee sits flat against the fascia and carries more, and square is the modern version. A bungalow hip sheds a wide area into very few outlets, so where a run has spilled for years the answer is a deepflow profile or a second outlet. Another clear out will not fix it. Boards go back in uPVC on most of the estate, where thickness matters more than colour because a thin board flexes between rafters. Painted timber suits the older cottages, cast iron corrodes on the inner face that no brush can get to, and seamless aluminium is formed to length on the drive and lifted up as a single run.
Behind the boards. The board comes down and then the eaves can be seen properly. Rafter feet take the new fascia, the wall plate beneath them carries the roof, the tilt fillet holds the bottom course of tiles up so they throw clear, and the underlay needs a felt support tray under it to drip into the run at all. BS 5534 covers that. Capping over hard, dry, painted timber is a genuine option and we offer it. Over a soft board it is a lid on wet wood, and the new brackets have nothing to bite.
Air in, water away. The soffit is not just a panel, it is where your roof draws breath, so a vented soffit or an over fascia vent replaces whatever was there before, and nothing is packed into the gap over the insulation. Shut it and the felt runs with condensation in January and mould spreads on rafters that had nothing wrong with them. Approved Document C says what is expected. At the bottom of the wall, a pipe has to end in a gully or a soakaway placed far enough out to take the water. Anything that gets behind the run puts staining down a render and driving rain keeps it there. Wherever a joint in a board has opened, birds will be nesting behind the soffit, and there are usually wasps higher up the gable. Moss and debris coming off the tiles will have the outlet blocked long before anything else gives trouble.
How it runs
Renewing the roofline on a Post Green bungalow
A bungalow roofline runs right round the building at one height, so it is long but easy to reach. Thomas walks it, presses the fascia at the corners, looks at the soffit, and prices it himself. Taking it down and putting it back up sits on that one quote.
The written quote gives each run a line: access, taking down the old boards and gutter, the fascia, the soffit and any bargeboard, soffit ventilation, the gutter, outlets and downpipes, and disposal. Most bungalows in Post Green come off a tower wheeled along the eaves; a two storey gable needs scaffold. Soffit boards on houses of this era can contain asbestos, so they are tested before anyone cuts them, and removed properly if they do. Old timber leaves in the van and the drive is swept daily. When the boards come off and the rafter feet are rotten, Thomas shows you a photograph and prices the repair before anything is cut out.
A roofline put back the same as it came off counts as repair, not building work, a line drawn by regulation 12 of the Building Regulations 2010. Dorset Council is the planning authority. The older lanes are partly inside the Lytchett Minster conservation area, where appearance is controlled, so confirm your address with the council; a listed house needs listed building consent before the boards change. On the estates the board and profile are your choice.
Cost
What drives the cost of fascias, soffits and gutters
Length and corners. A hipped Post Green bungalow has a long, continuous run of fascia with a corner at every hip, and each corner joint, outlet and downpipe takes time. A plain gable house has shorter runs but a bargeboard up each gable.
What the boards were hiding. When a fascia is rotten, the question is whether the rafter feet and the wall plate behind it have gone too. Capping over soft timber with plastic hides that, so where a board is soft we take it off and look.
The soffit. Older Post Green soffit boards may be asbestos cement. If a test confirms it, they come down under controlled conditions, and that is priced separately. New soffits usually get ventilation strips, because a loft with no air at the eaves collects condensation.
Access. A bungalow is normally a tower job, which keeps the cost down. A two storey house, or a run above a conservatory, needs scaffold built around it. The work at height rules make that its own line.
Before you sign, ask whether the old boards are coming off or being capped over, what happens if the rafter feet are rotten, and whether the gutter and downpipes are included or only the fascia and soffit.
If a section has come away
A gutter hanging off, or a fascia you can push through
Ring us, do not use the form. A gutter that has pulled away from its brackets, a downpipe that has come apart, or a fascia you can push a finger through will send the next heavy rain down the wall.
If a length is hanging over a door or a path, keep people from under it. The first visit supports it or takes it down safely and makes sure the water is getting to a downpipe, and we price the proper repair once we see how far the rot goes. Scheduled roofline work is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Call for anything urgent, and if nobody picks up we will call you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
In the conservation area, the profile is a planning matter
The older core of Lytchett Minster is a conservation area, and inside it the control is over appearance rather than over the work. Renewing a run like for like is maintenance and nobody has to be asked. Taking a cast iron ogee gutter off a road elevation and putting white plastic square up in its place changes how the building reads from the street, and that is a planning question rather than a repair.
It is easy enough to handle if it is settled early. Insist that the quote names the profile and the material instead of saying new guttering, and put that in front of the council before an order goes in. At the rear, out of sight of any public road or footpath, the choice is normally yours entirely. The other thing worth knowing is that this only applies inside the boundary: most of the housing around Post Green sits outside it, and there the colour and the profile are entirely yours.
Who you are dealing with
Who measures up your roofline
From our base in Boscombe to Post Green is about nine and a half miles. We cover Post Green, Lytchett Minster, Upton, Lytchett Matravers, Organford and Sandford, broadly BH16, under Dorset Council.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales with company number 15471719, and the man who runs it, Thomas Hannen, walks your eaves and writes the price himself. Checkatrade lists a verified customer's 10 out of 10. We come and look for free, and the written quote, broken down run by run, is free too. Before you book a visit in Post Green, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Post Green?
Most repairs in Post Green 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.
| Question | In Post Green |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Post Green. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Lytchett Minster Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Post Green. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Post Green. |
Questions
Questions about fascias and guttering in Post Green
Am I inside the conservation area or outside it?
The boundary is drawn round the old core of Lytchett Minster and not round the newer housing, so most addresses out this way fall outside it. Look it up on the council's map before ordering anything, since within that line the look of a road elevation is controlled.
The gutter is clear and it still comes over. Why?
Almost never a blockage: the cause is usually one of these: the run was hung flat, or it has settled away from the outlet; the section is too shallow for the area of roof above it; or a single downpipe is being asked to take two elevations. None of those is cured by clearing it again. A deepflow profile, or a second outlet cut into the run, is what actually fixes it.
Can you leave the soffits and just do the fascia and gutter?
Sometimes, and we will say so on the day. The catch is that the soffit is how your roof breathes, so if it is disturbed the vents have to go back in. On a Post Green house where the soffit is hard and only the fascia has failed, doing the fascia alone is sensible and costs less.
What happens if the timber behind is rotten?
The rotten part is cut out and a new rafter end let in. You get a photograph and a figure on the day, and the decision is yours before anyone goes further. Nobody can see that from a Post Green pavement, and it moves a roofline price further than anything else on the quote.
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Get the boards, the profile and the material in writing
Thomas Hannen prices every job himself and writes the profile and material on the quote, so a conservation area question is a short conversation. Free visit, free written itemised quote.