Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in Spetisbury

The old half of Spetisbury is timber and iron. On the cottages the eaves are deep timber and sometimes there is no soffit under them at all, with a cast iron channel bolted to the fascia or hung on brackets in the rafter ends.

Iron gives out at its unions and along the rear face nobody paints, not in the middle of a length, so where the metal is sound the sensible job is taking it down, re-bedding and bolting the joints, painting behind as well as in front, and re-hanging it on a fall. Timber that has gone soft is another matter, and cladding over it with a cover board simply locks the moisture in.

The newer half. On the post war Spetisbury houses the boards are thinner softwood, often already capped, and the channel is plastic that has sagged between brackets. Fascia, soffit and bargeboard all come away and go back in uPVC, and we cap over only where the wood underneath is genuinely dry and firm. The rainwater goods are renewed as one set, brackets, unions, outlets, hopper heads, downpipes and shoes, hung falling to the outlet, because a length put up level ponds along its middle for twelve months. Half round suits most, ogee sits flush to a square edged fascia, and deepflow moves far more where a long roof drains into a single run.

Whatever the age, what is behind it. Lift the fascia and there are the rafter ends, the plate carrying them and the tilt fillet that raises the lowest row of tiles. Wet ends are cut back and pieced in solid. A felt support tray follows, carrying the underlay over the front of the board so the water it sheds arrives in the channel. Tiles moved to get there go back to the pattern in BS 5534. Out in Spetisbury the downpipe usually empties into a gully and then a soakaway, and a soakaway that has silted up hands the water straight back to the foot of your wall.

Air, and the jobs that stay jobs. A soffit off is the moment for eaves ventilation, either vented panels or over fascia vents on a shallow board, holding an air gap open above the loft insulation so condensation is not mistaken for a leak. A lot of roofline trouble is far smaller: one weeping joint, a perished union, a bracket torn from soft wood, a downpipe snapped at the shoe, an outlet solid with moss and debris washed off the tiles. Those are refixed, re-hung or swapped on their own. Wasps first, nesting birds once they have finished.

Nobody should price a roofline by the metre from the pavement. These are the things that change it on houses in this village.

The soffit. On a house from the late sixties or early seventies, the soffit is the first question. Plain timber comes down in an afternoon. Asbestos cement has to be tested, taken down carefully and disposed of properly, and that is its own line.

What the gutter hangs on. The fascia carries the gutter, and behind it are the rafter feet. If they have been wet from a blocked gutter for years, the ends may need splicing before a new board goes on. Plastic capped over old timber hides that and leaves it rotting.

The shape of the house. A bungalow is one level, worked off a tower. A hipped semi has corners to mitre and returns to box in. A Spetisbury cottage on the main road wants a platform on the footway, and under the work at height rules that platform is priced as its own item, not hidden in a rate.

Ventilation. Lofts from this era were often sealed at the eaves. A vented soffit or an over-fascia vent lets the roof space breathe, which matters if the loft has just been topped up.

Before you choose, ask whether the old boards are coming off or being capped, what happens if the soffit tests positive, and whether the downpipes are being renewed or only the gutter.

Semis and terraces make up a good part of Spetisbury, and on those the gutter is one continuous run passing over the party wall. You cannot properly renew half of it.

Cut a new length into an old one and you get a joint sitting right where the two roofs meet, usually between two different profiles, and that joint is the first thing to leak. Worse, your new brackets end up screwed to your half of a fascia while next door's half is still soft, so the board sags and pulls your end down with it.

So the sensible order of things is to talk to your neighbour before you book anything. We quote each house separately, each owner pays for their own, and the run comes off and goes back in one go with a single fall to the outlet. If your neighbour is not ready, we will still do your side and we will show you on the quote exactly where the new work stops and what that joint will and will not do. What we will not do is pretend it is as good as doing the whole run.

Our base in Boscombe is 14.2 miles south of you, and we work through the DT11 villages from Charlton Marshall to the Winterbornes and up to Blandford. Dorset Council deals with planning in all of them.

The company trading here is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, number 15471719 at Companies House, registered in England and Wales. Thomas Hannen, who owns it, prices each roofline in person after walking round the house. On Checkatrade, one verified customer scored the work 10 out of 10. You do not pay for the visit, and the written quote with each item listed is free too. Before you book a visit in Spetisbury, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Spetisbury 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.