Fascias, soffits and guttering in Tolpuddle

The parts, and the order they fail in. Fascia, soffit, bargeboard, verge, then gutter, brackets, unions, outlets, hoppers, downpipes and shoes. Paint goes first, blown and peeling on the face of a board. Then the timber softens at the ends of the run where the bracket screws are, so the gutter sags or drops between fixings and stops falling to the outlet. Then a joint starts leaking, a length pulls away from the wall, and there is staining down the render below. By the time somebody rings, most of that has already happened and the question is how much of the timber behind it is still worth keeping.

Taking it off, not covering it up. The boards come down so we can see the rafter feet, the wall plate and the bottom course of tiles. On older cottages the wall plate end is often what has taken the water, and no amount of new plastic on the front of it changes that. Rot begins at the top edge of the fascia where the felt has torn back over the eaves, so a felt support tray goes in as a matter of course, with a tilt fillet setting the bottom course to drip into the gutter instead of behind it. Soft rafter ends get spliced. Anything lifted at the eaves or the verge is refixed the way BS 5534 expects. If a board turns out sound, dry and firmly fixed, capping the face and lining the soffit is a fair job at a lower price and we will say so.

The bits people forget. Outlets, unions and hoppers are where most leaks actually are, and they are the cheapest things on the quote. Every union gets a new seal, the outlet sits at the low end of the fall, and hopper heads are checked while we are up there. The shoe at the bottom of each downpipe is set so the rainwater discharges into a gully rather than at the footings, because a pipe ending a foot short of anything is how a solid wall gets damp. And the eaves gap is not decoration: soffit vents in the new panels, or an over fascia vent where the soffit is too narrow, with the air gap over the loft insulation left clear, is what stops condensation forming in the roof space. Approved Document F sets the eaves ventilation figures.

What to put back. uPVC in white, black or woodgrain on most modern houses, timber where a moulded profile matters and primed on all four faces, cast iron rubbed down, re-bedded and repainted rather than removed where it is still sound, and aluminium on a long run so there are no unions in it at all. Gutter profile follows the roof: half round on an ordinary slope, and square, ogee or deepflow where a wide or steep roof in driving rain sheds more than half round will carry before it spills over the back of the gutter. Everything is re-hung on new brackets to a proper fall, corners closed against birds and wasps nesting behind a soffit, and any outlet blocked with moss and debris off the tiles pointed out.

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 street, a house with a tiled back addition behind a thatched front, and a modern detached 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.

Tolpuddle is a conservation area, so what is controlled is the appearance of the building from the street rather than whether you may repair it. Renewing rotten boards and a failed gutter in the same material and the same profile is maintenance and needs nothing from the council. Swapping painted timber and cast iron on a frontage for brilliant white plastic is a change of appearance, and there are listed entries along the street where the rainwater goods form part of what is protected, so listed building consent applies before anything is altered.

There is a second thing that surprises people here, and it is about thatch. A thatched roof normally has no gutter at the eaves at all. The thatch overhangs far enough to throw water clear of the wall, and hanging a gutter on it usually causes more trouble than it solves. So on a thatched cottage the roofline work is the parts around it: the bargeboards and the fascia on a tiled extension, the gutter and downpipe on the back addition, and getting the water that does come off the tiled sections away from the footings properly. If somebody has offered to fit guttering to your thatch, ask them why before you agree to it.

We cover Tolpuddle, Affpuddle, Briantspuddle, Puddletown and Burleston, broadly DT2, under Dorset 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.