Fascias and soffits are the boards that finish off your roofline, and most homeowners only think about them once the paint is flaking or a bird has moved into the loft. Replacement is one of those jobs where quotes can vary wildly for reasons that are not always obvious. Here is a straight explanation of what you are actually paying for, and roughly what to expect.
Most UK installers price roofline work per linear metre, then adjust for access and complexity. As a rough guide, full replacement of fascias, soffits and guttering in uPVC tends to land somewhere between £60 and £110 per linear metre supplied and fitted, with London and the South East usually sitting toward the upper end because of labour and parking costs.
In practice that means a typical three bedroom semi in the Shirley and Croydon area often comes out somewhere in the region of £1,800 to £3,500 for the full roofline, front and back. A small terrace with a simple front elevation might be under £1,200. A detached house with dormers, bay windows and a garage can comfortably pass £5,000. Anyone quoting a firm price before seeing the property is guessing.
The biggest single factor is access. A bungalow reachable from a tower is a very different job to a three storey Victorian house needing scaffold, and scaffold on a South London street can add several hundred pounds on its own, sometimes more if a pavement licence is needed from the council.
The second factor is what is found once the old boards come off. Rotten rafter ends are common on properties built before the 1960s, and they need cutting back and splicing before new boards go on. Good installers will flag this as a possibility in the quote rather than spring it on you halfway through.
Capping means fixing a thin uPVC cover board over the existing timber fascia. It is quicker and often twenty to thirty percent cheaper, and on sound, dry timber it can be a perfectly reasonable choice. The problem is that it is frequently sold as a full replacement when it is not.
If the timber underneath is soft or damp, capping seals moisture in and you can end up with hidden rot spreading into the roof structure. Ask any installer directly whether they are removing the old timber or covering it, and get the answer in writing. On older Shirley and Addiscombe housing stock, full removal is usually the better long term decision.
Cheap roofline quotes usually save money somewhere specific. Common shortcuts include capping instead of replacing, reusing old guttering, fitting boards without proper ventilation strips, and nailing rather than screwing into rafter ends. None of these are visible from the ground once the job is done, which is exactly why they happen.
Ventilation matters more than people expect. Soffits should allow air into the roof space, either through vented boards or continuous strip vents. Sealing a roof up tight is a reliable way to get condensation and damp in the loft a couple of winters later.
Roofline work is easy to defer, but failing fascias let water track behind the boards and into the wall head. Signs worth acting on include green or black staining down the wall below the guttering, sagging gutter runs, flaking paint on timber boards, and birds or squirrels getting into the eaves.
If you are already having the roof recovered or scaffold is up for other work, doing the roofline at the same time is a genuine saving rather than an upsell. Combining the jobs can take a meaningful chunk off the total because the access cost is shared.
A typical semi takes two to three days once access is set up. Larger detached properties or houses needing scaffold and rafter repairs can run to a week.
For a straightforward like for like replacement on an ordinary house, no. If the property is listed or in a conservation area, check with the local council first, as material and colour changes can be restricted.
Good quality uPVC roofline fitted correctly should last twenty five years or more with only occasional cleaning. Guarantees on the boards themselves are commonly ten to twenty years, with a separate shorter guarantee on the workmanship.
Tell us about the job and we will get a quote back to you, most days the same day.