Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement 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.

A Rockbourne roofline fails through 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, not 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 in Rockbourne 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 Rockbourne 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 wherever it is still sound, and left in place. 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 C, with BS 5250 behind it, sets out what the eaves need. 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 metre, because a metre along a long straight gable is quicker than one around a bay or a porch.

Access. A Rockbourne cottage with low eaves close to the lane, a farmhouse with a long gable, and a newer house with a bay under the front run are different jobs. A low run works from a tower; a tall gable needs a scaffold. The work at height rules make that a priced line.

Behind the boards. A rotten fascia often means the rafter feet or the wall plate behind it are soft too. That can only be seen with the board off, which is why we only cap over a board that has proved sound.

Where the water goes. Parts of Rockbourne sit in flood zones on the government flood map, so a downpipe emptying onto the ground by a wall is worth sorting while the roofline is being done. Approved Document H covers how rainwater should discharge.

Material. Cast iron or timber on an older house costs more than uPVC, and on a listed building it may be the only option.

Ask other firms whether the old boards come off or get capped, what happens if the rafter feet are rotten, and whether the gutter, outlets and downpipes are all included.

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.

From our base in Boscombe it is 16 miles to Rockbourne. We cover the village and SP6 around it: Whitsbury, Damerham, Breamore and Fordingbridge. Planning is with New Forest District Council. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and anyone can look it up. Before you book a visit in Rockbourne, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Thomas Hannen, whose business it is, comes out to look at the roofline and puts the price together himself. One verified customer rated us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. You pay nothing for the visit or for the quote, which lists every item.

Most repairs in Rockbourne 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.