Fascias, soffits and guttering in Ringwood

The frontage. Out on the street the eaves are often deep timber with a cast iron channel bolted straight to them, and everything about that job is decided by what is underneath your feet as well as what is over your head. Iron fails at the unions and along its unpainted rear face rather than in the middle of a length, so where the metal is sound the right job is taking it down, re-bedding the joints, painting inside and out and re-hanging it on a fall. Where boards have to go, fascia, soffit and bargeboard come away rather than being clad, because a cover board over decayed timber traps the damp and gives new brackets nothing to hold. New boards are uPVC.

The back of the house. Round the rear it is usually the ordinary picture: thinner softwood, sometimes already capped, and a plastic channel that has sagged between its brackets. That gets stripped out and replaced as a set, brackets, unions, outlets, hopper heads, downpipes and shoes together, hung falling to the outlet. Half round covers most, ogee sits flat against a square edged fascia, and deepflow shifts far more where a long roof drains into one length. A pipe finishing over a path or a bare border rather than in a gully is worth moving while the access is standing.

What the strip exposes. With the fascia gone you can read the rafter ends, the wall plate beneath them and the tilt fillet that raises the bottom course of tiles. Wet ends are cut back and pieced in solid. A felt support tray then carries the underlay over the front of the board so its water lands in the channel instead of running behind, which is why some walls stay damp long after new guttering has gone up. Tiles lifted to reach it are refixed to the pattern in BS 5534.

Ventilation and the minor work. A new soffit is the moment for eaves ventilation, vented panels or over fascia vents where the board is shallow, keeping an air gap clear above the loft insulation. A great deal of what we do in town never becomes a replacement: one weeping joint, a perished union, a bracket dragged out of soft wood, a length that has dropped out of fall, an outlet blocked with moss and debris off the tiles. Those are refixed, re-hung or swapped alone. Wasps are dealt with before a board comes down, and nesting birds get their gap closed only once it is empty.

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 terrace with the run straight over the footway, a flat above a shop and a semi on one of the newer estates are three different jobs. 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.

In the older streets the eaves come right out over the footway, so there is nowhere to stand a ladder that is not a public highway. That is not a detail we can wave away. A scaffold or a tower standing on or over a public footway needs a licence in writing from the highway authority, which is what the Highways Act requires, and a skip on the road needs its own permit as well. Both take time to arrange and both are a real cost, which is why the access sits on the quote as its own line rather than being buried in a rate per metre.

What it means for you is simple enough. Ask any quote for a town centre property whether the licence is included and who is applying for it, because a price that ignores it is not a price for your job. It also decides the timing: we would rather book a week where the platform goes up, the run comes off and the new boards, gutter and downpipes all go back before it comes down, than have the same footway closed twice.

We cover Ringwood, Poulner, Ashley Heath, Burley and Fordingbridge, broadly BH24, under New Forest District 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.