Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement 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 the staining shows, 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 Tolpuddle 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 and not 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.

A metre of fascia is not a fixed thing. What it costs depends on the house, and on what turns up behind it.

The height and the obstacles. Low cottage eaves might come off a tower in a morning. A two storey gable needs a scaffold, and a run above a conservatory or a bay has to be worked round with a platform built to suit. The work at height rules are why access sits on its own line.

The timber you cannot see yet. Rotten fascia is often a sign that water has been getting to the rafter feet for years. Plastic cladding over the top hides that, which is why we strip and look.

The material. Replacing like for like in uPVC is quick. Matching cast iron or timber on an older or listed house means sourcing the right profile of gutter, hopper and brackets, and painting after, and that takes time.

The detail. Corners, returns, each outlet and hopper, and resetting the fall so the gutter drains rather than holding water are counted separately.

When another quote comes in, ask whether the old boards come off or are clad over, what happens if the rafter feet are rotten, and whether the downpipes are included or only the fascia.

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 in Tolpuddle, 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.

Our base is on Wolverton Road in Boscombe, about twenty miles away, and we cover Tolpuddle, Burleston, Affpuddle, Briantspuddle and Puddletown. This stretch of DT2 falls to Dorset Council.

The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and it is run by Thomas Hannen, who walks the roofline and prices it himself rather than sending somebody else. On Checkatrade a verified customer has scored us 10 out of 10. There is no charge for the visit or for the written quote, which lists every part of the job line by line. Before you book a visit in Tolpuddle, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Tolpuddle 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.