Fascias, soffits and guttering 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.
Most of the housing around Post Green is post-war and on its second roofline at most, so a renewal here is usually a straightforward strip and refit. The exception is the older lane through Lytchett Minster, where the conservation area controls what a run is allowed to look like from the road.
People ring about one of three things. 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.
Somebody goes up 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 rather than 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 rather than being patched in the middle. 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 here, 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 rather than another clear out. 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 F 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
From your call to a written price
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.
A roofline put back the same as it came off counts as repair and not as building work, which means no application and nothing notified, a line drawn by regulation 12 of the Building Regulations 2010. Dorset Council is the planning authority. The Lytchett Minster conservation area covers the older part of the village, and there appearance is controlled rather than the work itself, so listed building consent and the council's conservation area maps are worth a look before you order. On the estates outside it the board and the profile are your choice.
Cost
What decides the price of a roofline
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 you can walk a tower along, a semi with a garage run at the side and a house on the older lane with its eaves out over a narrow verge each need a different way 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.
If a section has come away
A gutter hanging off, or a fascia gone through
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. The yard is under eight miles away, so a length left hanging on a single bracket usually gets looked at within a day. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
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
A local firm you can check
We cover Post Green, Lytchett Minster, Upton, Lytchett Matravers, Organford and Sandford, 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.
Questions
Post Green questions we get asked
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. Three things cause it: 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. 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 the 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.