Fascia, soffit and guttering replacement in West Moors

A single storey run is longer than it looks. A bungalow has far more eaves for the floor area than a house does, so there is more fascia, more soffit, more gutter, more brackets and usually more downpipes to renew.

Add a hip at each end and a porch or a conservatory and the run stops being one straight line and becomes half a dozen shorter ones with a corner at every junction. We measure the whole building at the survey, not just the elevation you rang about, because a quote for the front alone is rarely the job you actually want.

Off, and the look underneath. Fascia, soffit, bargeboard and old gutter come off together. Cap over a soft board and the rot carries on behind it while the bracket screws quietly lose their grip, until the whole run has to come off anyway. With everything down we can see the rafter feet, the wall plate and the bottom course of tiles. Soft rafter ends get a sound new end spliced on, a felt support tray goes in where the underfelt has torn back over the eaves, and a tilt fillet sets the bottom course so it drips into the gutter rather than behind it. Tiles lifted at the eaves or the verge are refixed as BS 5534 expects. Where the timber is genuinely sound and dry, capping the face and lining the soffit is a fair, cheaper job and we will tell you when that is what you have.

What the run needs. New brackets at proper centres, and the gutter re-hung falling towards the outlet. Hung level it looks perfectly straight from the drive and stands full of water all year, which perishes the union seals and keeps a board damp from behind. Half round is fine on an ordinary roof, but a bungalow with a wide shallow slope catching driving rain across its whole length can shed more water than half round will carry, and square, ogee or deepflow hold more before it goes over the back of the gutter. Every union gets a new seal, downpipes are clipped straight, hopper heads checked, and the shoe set so it discharges into a gully and not at the wall, where it soaks the brickwork and shows as damp inside.

Materials, air and the nuisances. uPVC in white, black or woodgrain is the usual answer on this West Moors stock, timber where a moulded profile matters and primed on all four faces, cast iron repaired and repainted where it survives, aluminium where a long run is better with no unions. The eaves get put right while they are open, which on a bungalow is the part worth paying attention to: the loft is broad and shallow at the edges, insulation gets pushed hard into the gap, and the air stops moving. Soffit vents in the new panels, or an over fascia vent where the soffit is too narrow, with the air gap kept clear over the loft insulation, is what keeps that roof space dry instead of growing condensation. Approved Document C and BS 5250 are what roof space condensation is judged against. Corners are closed against birds and wasps nesting behind a soffit, and any outlet blocked with moss and debris off the tiles is pointed out.

A roofline is not priced by the metre, though on a bungalow there are a lot of metres. The length of it. A hipped bungalow has eaves on all four sides, so it has far more fascia and gutter than a two storey house of the same floor area. Every internal and external corner, every outlet and every downpipe is a separate piece of work.

The timber behind. Many of the boards in West Moors went up in the late sixties and early seventies, and some have since been capped in plastic, which can hide rot. Once the old board is off, the rafter feet and the wall plate show whether they can take a new fascia straight on or need splicing first.

Airflow into the loft. A bungalow loft is shallow and a lot of insulation often sits right at the eaves. New soffits with vents, or an over-fascia vent, keep air moving so the loft does not sweat. That is a line worth having on the quote.

Where the downpipes go. The ground here is clay that shrinks and swells. A downpipe emptying onto the path by the wall puts water where the footings least want it, so each one should run into a gully.

Access. A tower covers most bungalows. The work at height rules still set it, so it is priced.

Ask each quote whether the old boards come off or are capped over, whether soffit ventilation is included, and whether every downpipe is renewed.

Most of West Moors went up in a fairly short stretch of years, on the same eaves detail, in the same softwood, with the same paint. That has a consequence people meet one house at a time and rarely join up: rooflines here do not fail individually, they come due as a group.

If two or three houses in your West Moors road have had theirs done recently, yours is on the same clock, and the reason is not that your neighbours are keen. It is that the timber went up in the same season as yours did.

That is useful rather than depressing, because it lets you plan instead of react. A roofline replaced in a dry spell, booked when you choose, is a straightforward two day job. The same job after a length has come off in a February gale is an emergency call, wet, and usually with a damp wall to sort out as well. So if the boards on your road are starting to go, get somebody up to yours and look at the ends of each run where the brackets screw in, rather than waiting for it to announce itself. We will tell you honestly if it has a few more years, and we would rather say that than sell you something early.

We cover West Moors, Three Legged Cross, Ferndown, Verwood and St Leonards, broadly BH22, under Dorset Council. It is a 7.1 mile run up from Boscombe, where our base is. The business is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, which is registered in England and Wales as company 15471719. Before you book a visit in West Moors, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Thomas Hannen owns it, walks round your roofline and puts the price together himself. A verified customer scored us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit costs nothing, and the itemised quote comes in writing for free.

Most repairs in West Moors 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.