Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Southbourne

Stripping out the old boards. We take the old fascia, soffit and any bargeboard off instead of capping over them. Capping over plastic onto rotten timber hides the problem and traps the moisture, and it tells nobody whether the rafter feet and the wall plate behind are sound.

With the boards off, we can see, and a gutter we are keeping is taken down and refixed, not left hanging on old clips, and if anything behind needs work you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.

New fascia and soffit. Full replacement uPVC boards fixed back to the rafter feet with stainless screws, a soffit vent or over fascia vent so the loft keeps its eaves ventilation and an air gap that stops condensation on the timbers, and a felt support tray so the old underlay at the eaves stops rotting and drains into the gutter rather than behind it. Where the tiles overhang we set the tilt fillet so the bottom course sits right. On a typical Southbourne detached house the boards are two to three days' work.

Gutters and downpipes. Half round, square, ogee or deepflow in plastic, or aluminium where a longer life or a period look is wanted, hung with enough fall to empty and enough outlets to cope with a heavy storm. Brackets go in at the right spacing, every union and outlet is new, and each downpipe discharges through a shoe into a gully or soakaway, not onto the wall. We clear moss and debris off the roof edge while we are up there, because what washes off the tiles is what blocks a new run.

Period and cast iron work. Some of the Southbourne Edwardian houses still have cast iron gutters and hoppers and decorative timber bargeboards at the verge. We can repair cast iron, and we can replace timber with timber, not plastic where the look matters, which on some roads it does.

Birds and wasps. Gaps at a Southbourne soffit are where starlings, sparrows and wasps get into the roof. New boards close them, and if a nest is active we work around it or wait, because disturbing an active bird's nest is an offence.

When we would talk you out of it. Sound timber with flaking paint needs a rub down and a repaint, not replacing. A single dripping joint is a repair. We tell you.

One person to ring from the first visit to the last. 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 instead of 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.

Replacing the roofline on a house like for like needs no planning. Flats and shops have no permitted development rights, and on the stretch of Southbourne Grove that is a conservation area a change from timber to plastic, or of colour or profile, can need consent, so the council keeps the list and we check before ordering. BCP Council is the planning authority.

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. Close to the Southbourne cliff, salt air rusts old steel gutter brackets from the inside, so a whole length can let go at once in a gale. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.

Call now: 07435 839745

The western stretch of Southbourne Grove is a conservation area, and the Grove itself is a long run of shops, many with flats or offices above. That makes the roofline on these buildings a different job from the same work on a house.

Planning control over appearance applies here in a way it does not on the side roads. The owner of the shop, the owner of the flat above and the freeholder of the whole building can all be different people, and usually only one of them can instruct the work.

Before quoting in Southbourne we work out who owns the roofline, and so who we are quoting. We also check whether the existing boards and gutters are original timber and cast iron worth matching, or later plastic, because inside the conservation area a like for like replacement is maintenance and a change of material may not be. And we plan how the scaffold goes up over a busy pavement in front of a shop that has to stay open, which usually means a licence from the council and a fan or covered walkway. It adds time before we start, not to the job itself.

Nearby places we also cover for fascias, soffits and guttering, with straight-line distances from Southbourne, and the other trades we offer in Southbourne itself.

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