Newly fitted fascias and soffits with a new gutter run on a painted brick bungalow

Services

Fascias and soffits in South Yorkshire

The board behind your gutter is what the gutter hangs on. Nobody looks at it until the guttering starts tipping away from the wall, and by then the timber has usually been wet for years. I repair the boards that are still sound and replace the ones that are not.

Fascias and soffits are the least interesting thing on a house and the easiest to sell badly. The fascia is the board along the roof edge that carries the gutter brackets. The soffit is the flat panel tucked underneath, closing the gap between the wall and the overhang. Between them they keep weather out of the roof space and give the guttering something to hold on to.

They fail from water, not from age. A gutter overflowing at one joint for five winters keeps that stretch permanently wet, and timber goes soft long before it looks rotten from the ground.

How to tell your fascias and soffits have gone

  • Paint flaking or blistering along the fascia. The timber under it is holding water and pushing the paint off.
  • The gutter sagging or tipping forward. The brackets have nothing solid left to hold on to.
  • Dark staining down the soffit panel. Water is getting behind the board instead of running off it.
  • Green growth on the board under one gutter joint. That joint has been dripping onto it, probably for years.
  • Birds or wasps getting in under the eaves. A gap has opened somewhere and something has found it.

What a finished run looks like

  • A newly fitted white gutter and fascia run on a bungalow.
    New board, and the gutter rehung to a proper fall rather than put back where it was.

Repair, replace, or the whole elevation

There are three honest answers and they are very different money.

A repair is for a board that is sound apart from one soft stretch, usually under the joint that has been dripping. That section comes out, a new piece goes in, the gutter goes back on properly. It is much the cheapest of the three, and it is what most houses actually need.

A replacement is for a run that has gone along its length. New fascia, new soffit, gutter rehung, and that is most of a day on one elevation.

The whole house is the one that gets sold hardest and is needed least often. It is worth doing when the boards genuinely have gone all the way round, or when you want the lot maintenance free. Both are fair reasons. Being told your front is fine but you may as well do it while the ladders are up is not.

Which of the three yours is decides the price far more than size or height, which is why I look before I quote. The quote is free.

You probably do not need the whole house doing

This is the biggest upsell in the trade and it is worth knowing before anyone prices your job. Boards fail where water has been sitting on them, which is one or two stretches under leaking joints, not evenly all the way round a house. If somebody has quoted for the lot, ask which boards they actually found soft and where. It is a fair question and a straight answer takes ten seconds.

Before you say yes to a quote

Do the gutters have to come off to do the fascia?

Yes, the gutter is screwed to the board, so it comes down and goes back up. That is the argument for doing both together: you pay once to get up there, and it is the natural moment to fix a joint that has been dripping for years.

There are birds nesting under the soffit. Can it still be done?

Not while the nest is in use. Active nests are protected, so the work waits until the young have fledged, usually late summer. I seal the gap properly when I do it, so it does not happen again next spring.

Will a new board match the rest of the house?

Usually, on anything modern. Older houses sometimes have a deeper board or a profile that no longer exists, and there the honest answer is that a new section will be close rather than identical. I will tell you before it goes up, not after.

Could it just be painted instead?

If the timber is still sound, yes, and it is much the cheaper option. If it has gone soft, paint seals the water in and hides the problem for a season. That is the whole reason for pressing the board rather than looking at it.

Ask somebody to press the timber

The only way to know is for somebody to get up and push at it. A photo from the ground shows flaking paint, which could be a board wanting a coat or a board that has gone entirely. Very different jobs, so this one is worth looking at rather than quoting off a picture.

07515 154559, Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Mexborough and twenty miles, so Rotherham, Doncaster, Barnsley, Sheffield and the Dearne Valley towns in between. If the gutter above has been dripping onto the board, that wants sorting at the same time: see gutter repairs and gutter clearing. Everything else is listed under services.

Want it looked at?

I come out and look before I price anything. Free quote, no call out fee.

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