Fascias, soffits and guttering in Rockbourne

The components, and which of them has failed. A roofline is the fascia on the ends of the rafters, the soffit beneath it, the bargeboard up the gable, the verge where the tiles finish, and then the rainwater side: gutter, brackets, unions, outlets, hoppers, downpipes and the shoe at the bottom. Almost every call is one of six faults. Blown and peeling paint. A board soft enough to take a screwdriver. A run sagging or dropped between brackets. A gutter pulled away from the wall. A leaking joint. Or an overflow in heavy rain from a run with nothing in it, which is a fall or profile problem and not a blockage.

Off rather than over. The boards come off. That is the only way to see the rafter feet, the wall plate and the bottom course of tiles, and on the older cottages here it is often the wall plate end that has taken the water. Rot starts at the top edge of the fascia where the felt has torn back over the eaves, so a felt support tray goes in as standard with a tilt fillet under the bottom course so the tiles drip into the gutter rather than behind it. Soft rafter ends are spliced. Tiles disturbed at the eaves or verge are refixed as BS 5534 expects. Where a board is genuinely sound and dry, capping the face and lining the soffit is a fair job at a lower price and we will tell you so.

What goes back. uPVC on most modern houses, in white, black or woodgrain, because it never needs painting and takes a bracket screw properly. Timber where a moulded profile matters, primed on all four faces before it goes up. Cast iron rubbed down, re-bedded and repainted rather than removed wherever it is still sound. Aluminium on a long unbroken run so there are no unions to fail. The gutter profile is chosen for the roof above it: half round for an ordinary slope, and square, ogee or deepflow where a wide or steep roof in driving rain sheds more water than half round will carry before it spills over the back edge.

Fall, fixings and air. New brackets at proper centres, the run re-hung to fall towards the outlet, unions resealed and downpipes clipped straight. Hung level, a gutter looks perfect and stands full of water all year, which perishes seals and keeps timber damp from behind. Then the eaves get put right while they are open: soffit vents in the new panels, or an over fascia vent where the soffit is too narrow to take one, with the air gap over the loft insulation left clear. Block it and the moisture that should be leaving the roof turns into condensation on the insulation instead. Approved Document F sets the eaves ventilation figures. Open corners are closed against birds and wasps nesting behind a soffit, and any outlet blocked with moss and debris off the tiles is pointed out while we are up there.

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 cottage with low eaves right on the village street, a farmhouse with a long straight gable, and a modern house with a bay window under the front run are three different jobs before a board comes off. 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.

The village runs along a chalk stream, and a fair number of the houses sit close to it on ground that is genuinely wet in winter. That matters at the bottom of a downpipe rather than at the top. When the water table is up, a soakaway does not soak away: it fills, backs up the pipe and puts roof water straight into the ground beside a wall, which is how an otherwise sound cottage ends up with damp at the base of it every February and dry the rest of the year. the government flood risk service will show you where your address sits.

So on a wet plot the question is not only what the gutter is made of but where every downpipe ends. A positive outfall to a piped drain or a proper gully beats a soakaway on ground like this, and Approved Document H is the guidance behind it. Do not pipe roof water straight into the watercourse without asking first, because that is a permission question rather than a plumbing one. When we quote, each downpipe is a separate line and we say what it currently discharges into, so you can decide whether to sort that at the same time. It is far cheaper to move a pipe while there is a tower on the wall than to come back for it.

We cover Rockbourne, Whitsbury, Damerham, Breamore and Fordingbridge, broadly SP6, 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.