Fascias, soffits and guttering in Sopley

Terraces, where the run does not stop at your boundary. One gutter often serves several houses and falls the whole way to a single outlet, so a bracket that has let go four doors along will have the run overflowing above your bedroom window, and the rainwater goes over the back of the gutter and down the brickwork rather than out at the front, so you get green staining outside and damp inside. We can renew your own section, and we will say plainly what that does and does not achieve while the rest of the length is still sagging. Where neighbours go in together the whole run is re-hung to one continuous fall, which is the version that works.

Post-war semis and estate houses. The usual find is original softwood fascia with a thin soffit and an early plastic gutter clipped to it. Blistered paint, a run sagging between brackets, a length pulled away from the wall and a board you can sink a screwdriver into are all the same story: water has been getting behind the timber for years, and peeling, blown paint is the early warning. The boards come off rather than being capped over, so the rafter feet and the wall plate can be seen and dealt with while everything is open. uPVC in white, black or woodgrain suits most of these houses, and where the timber under the paint is still hard we say so and cap over instead.

Bungalows. Kinder to price and quicker to do, because the eaves come off a tower and there is no scaffold to build. The catch is quantity. A low spreading bungalow with hips has more metres of fascia and gutter round it than a two storey house with the same floor area, so it is not the small job the shape suggests. Profile matters more here than people think: a broad rear slope under driving rain shifts more than half round can hold, so square, ogee or deepflow earns its keep. Deep overhangs also mean a wide soffit, and a wide soffit is where a wasp nest or a bird goes unnoticed for a season.

The older cottages on the lane. Cast iron on rise and fall brackets, moulded timber fascias, and no plastic anywhere. A good deal of that is repairable: a cracked section swapped, a joint re-bedded, sound iron rubbed down and repainted, rotten timber cut out and spliced in the same profile, and a loose bracket refixed rather than the whole length re-hung. Aluminium is the alternative worth asking about where iron has gone beyond saving, since it takes a painted finish and comes in long lengths. It is also the housing the conservation area was drawn around, so a swap to white plastic on a visible elevation is a planning matter rather than a shopping decision.

Garages, porches and back extensions. These are the runs nobody mentions on the phone and they cause half the damp. A garage gutter tipping onto a flat roof, a porch discharging into the main run through a hopper, an extension where two falls meet awkwardly at a corner. Each gets measured, priced and listed on its own line, because leaving one of them out is how a finished job still stains a wall.

Then the eaves detail, which is the same on all of them. A tilt fillet goes back so the bottom course sits right and drips forward, and a felt support tray carries the underlay over the edge so water on the felt lands in the gutter. The verge and eaves course go back fixed as BS 5534 expects. New soffits keep soffit vents, or an over fascia vent where there is no room for them, holding the air gap into the loft. That eaves ventilation is what Approved Document F is built around, and sealing it simply moves the problem to condensation. Downpipes discharge through a shoe into a gully or a soakaway well away from the footings, and outlets are left clear of the moss and debris that keep a run blocked and a board wet.

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 where the run carries on past your boundary, a cottage with the eaves low over a border, and a house with a garage tying into the same gutter are three different set ups. 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.

We cover Sopley, Bransgore, Burton, Winkton, Hurn and Ripley, broadly BH23, 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.