Fascias, soffits and guttering in Wool

Working out the fault. Blown or peeling paint on a timber fascia is the first warning, and a soft board is the confirmation. Once the timber has gone, the gutter brackets have nothing to hold and the run starts to sag, drop and pull away from the wall. Separately from that there is the leaking joint at a union, the outlet packed with moss off the tiles, the shoe missing at the bottom of a downpipe and the run that has tipped back so it overflows behind the gutter instead of over the front. Those are afternoon repairs and we would rather price you one of those than a whole roofline you do not need.

Stripping out. The gutter comes down, the fascia and soffit come off, and the rafter feet and wall plate are visible for the first time in decades. Rot stops within a few inches of a rafter end as a rule and those get cut back and spliced. A felt support tray goes under the bottom edge of the underlay so its drip lands in the gutter rather than running down behind the new board, and a tilt fillet sets the bottom course of tiles at the angle they should be at. Capping plastic straight over a rotten fascia leaves all of that untouched, and the new boards then hang on old timber. Where the existing timber is dry and solid, capping over is a fair job and we will price it that way.

New boards and a new run. uPVC fascia and vented soffit, bargeboards and capping to the gable, and gutter in half round, ogee, square or deepflow. Profile is a decision: a large roof slope draining into one short run needs a deepflow section, because a standard gutter will spill in heavy rain however clean it is. Timber renewed in timber is available where an older building wants it, cast iron can often be re-bedded, re-hung and repainted rather than replaced, and aluminium suits a long exposed run.

Fall, fixings and where the water ends up. Brackets at proper centres and the run set to fall towards the outlet, because a gutter hung dead level looks right from the pavement and holds standing water all year. Every outlet, union, hopper, downpipe clip and shoe is renewed or refixed, and we trace the rainwater to the bottom. A downpipe into a gully full of silt, or one over a soakaway that gave up long ago, keeps the brickwork damp and stained whatever the new gutter looks like.

Ventilation and wildlife. Vented soffits, or an over fascia vent strip where the board is too narrow, keep an air gap running through the eaves and into the loft, which is what stops condensation forming on the underside of the felt. Birds behind a lifted soffit and wasps in a gable are common, both get dealt with before new boards go on, and the run and outlets are cleared of moss and debris before we leave.

Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. 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 rather than 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.

Renewing a roofline like for like is maintenance, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control. Wool has its own conservation area covering part of the village, where appearance is controlled and a change of material on a visible elevation becomes a planning question. There is a handful of listed entries nearby, and on a listed building the roofline needs listed building consent before anything comes off. Dorset Council holds both boundaries.

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. Tell us on the phone if a length is hanging over a path or a door, because that changes the order we come in rather than the price. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.

Call now: 07435 839745

Wool is really two building stocks side by side. There is the old core, which the conservation area covers, and there is a great deal of post war housing around it which it does not. The difference matters to a roofline job because inside the boundary the appearance of what you put up is controlled, and outside it the board, the colour and the gutter profile are entirely your choice.

So the first thing to establish is which side of the line your address falls, and Dorset Council will tell you in a minute. If you are outside it, and most houses in the village are, there is nothing to apply for and a like-for-like renewal is simply a repair. If you are inside it, repair is still uncontrolled: renewing timber in timber, or repairing and repainting cast iron, needs nobody's permission. What needs asking about is a change of material or colour on an elevation the street can see. We will price whichever route you want, and we will tell you which one we think fits the building.

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