Fascias, soffits and guttering in Redlynch
The whole eaves looked at, not just the board you can see, with the run re-hung to a fall and the loft given its air back.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
A roofline is a system, not a board. The fascia carries the gutter, the soffit closes the eaves and lets the loft breathe, and the downpipe takes it all away. When one of the three fails the other two usually follow, which is why we quote the lot and then tell you what can wait.
Around Redlynch we get two very different sets of properties. There are the older cottages, where more than a quarter of the housing predates the First World War and the boards are painted softwood if there are boards at all. And there are the postwar houses and bungalows, where the plastic put up in the nineties has gone brittle.
Both get the same first step. We come out, get to the eaves, push a screwdriver into the timber at the ends and the joints, look at how the gutter is hung and follow each downpipe to the bottom. You get photographs of what is behind the boards, and a written quote split into lines: fascia, soffit, run, every downpipe, and the access needed to reach them, free of charge.
The work
Everything between the tiles and the drain
The boards. Fascia, soffit, bargeboard and the capping over a gable ladder fail as a set. Timber rots from behind the gutter and along the top edge where the felt has been dripping onto it, so peeling and blown paint is a symptom rather than the problem. Where the screwdriver goes in, the board comes off. Where it does not, we will say so and leave it, and we are happy to cap over a dry, sound, firmly fixed board rather than remove it, which is a legitimate job and a cheaper one.
The structure behind. With the boards down you can see the rafter feet, the wall plate and the bottom course of tiles for the first time in decades. Soft rafter ends get cut back and spliced. The tilt fillet is reinstated so the bottom tile lies at its proper angle, and a felt support tray stops the underlay sagging short, which is the detail that keeps rainwater off the back of the gutter. Refixing the bottom course as ' + C['bs5534'] + ' expects is part of the same half hour. That last detail is what stops water getting at the back of the gutter and damping the top of a wall, and it is missing on a surprising number of houses.
The run and the pipework. Gutter, outlets, unions, brackets, hoppers, downpipes and shoes are each priced on their own line. Half round is the common profile, ogee is the square fronted one that sits flat to the fascia, and deepflow carries more water for the same width where a long slope drains into one short length. uPVC, aluminium on a long straight run, and cast iron repaired and repainted on the older cottages all have their place. A run that is dropped at one end, pulled away from the wall, or overflowing through a leaking joint gets re-hung rather than patched, and the downpipes are refixed with fresh clips as it goes back.
Hanging it to a fall. A gutter without a fall in it is a trough with a hole at one end. Water stands in the low spots, the outlet silts, a bracket fixing never dries out, and the first frost splits a joint. Putting it right is not complicated: a line, a steady drop to the outlet, brackets set close enough that no length can bow, and a screw into solid timber at every one. On a bungalow you can stand in the garden and see whether it is right, which is a rare luxury. It gets filled from the far end and watched out at the shoe, and every downpipe is clipped back so it discharges into a gully or a soakaway rather than throwing rainwater at the brickwork, where driving rain and a blocked outlet will already be leaving staining.
Air and nuisance. This is where a bungalow differs most. The roof space above you is large, the eaves feeding it is long, and once the soffit closes up the loft has no air at all. So the eaves ventilation goes in as the boards go back, through soffit vents or an over fascia vent, with the gap over the insulation left properly open. That is what keeps the felt dry and the timbers sound. The openings are meshed at the same time, because nesting birds and wasps find a low quiet eaves quickly, and any moss and debris off the tiles is taken out of the outlet before we finish.
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 like for like roofline is repair and maintenance, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control, and Planning Portal guidance draws the same line for the roof above. There is no conservation area over Redlynch, but there are listed entries in the parish, and on a listed building even a change of material needs consent in its own right.
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 with a deep overhang over a lawn, an older cottage with a low eaves on a lane, and a detached house with a gable at each end are three different ways 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. Redlynch is a longer run out for us than the coast, so ring rather than email and we will give you an honest day. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
A bungalow eaves gets left far too long
Three homes in ten around Redlynch are bungalows, which is a higher share than almost anywhere else we work, and a bungalow roofline behaves differently from a house one. The gutter is close enough to see from the garden, so people assume they would notice a problem. In fact the part that fails is the soffit, and on a bungalow the soffit is deep, shaded and out of sight from every angle you normally look at the house.
Two things follow from that. The first is ventilation. A bungalow has a large loft for the size of the house and a long eaves feeding it, so when the soffit blocks up or gets boarded solid the whole roof space loses its air supply and you get condensation on the underside of the felt in the first cold snap. Continuous soffit vents or an over fascia vent are worth more here than on a two storey house. The second is nesting: a deep, low, quiet soffit is exactly where birds get in, and once a board has softened they will find it. The good news is the access. A single storey run can usually be worked from a tower rather than a scaffold, so the job is quicker and the access line on the quote is a good deal smaller.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Redlynch, Downton, Landford, Whiteparish, Fordingbridge and the villages on the edge of the Forest, broadly SP5, under Wiltshire 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
Redlynch questions we get asked
Can you do just the soffits and leave the fascia?
Only if the fascia is genuinely sound, because the soffit fixes back to it. Where the fascia has softened, new soffits are screwed to something that is on its way out. We test both on the visit and tell you honestly if one can wait.
Will new soffit vents make the house colder?
No. The vents ventilate the loft above the insulation, not the rooms below it. The insulation stays where it is and the air gap sits over the top of it, which is what keeps the roof timbers dry without costing you any heat.
What if the timber behind the boards has rotted?
You get a photograph and a price before we carry on. Splicing a rafter end or renewing a section of wall plate is ordinary carpentry, and it is far cheaper done now with the eaves open than in a few years with the new gutter coming off again.
How long does it take, and how much mess does it make?
Less than people expect. The old boards and gutter come down into a covered area, the site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and everything that comes off leaves with us rather than sitting in a skip on your drive.
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Get a price for your Redlynch roofline
Tell us the address and what you have noticed. We will get to the eaves, look behind the boards and put an itemised price in writing at no charge.