Hi,

I've got a company coming tomorrow morning to give me a quote to replace the soffits, facias, bargeboards and associated bits on my house and am looking for any indications as to what price to expect. The house is in central Scotland and is a 5-bed detached house.

This is the same house design here although our dormer window is just cladded in white not brown:



I'm aware of the pros and cons between over-cladding the existing timber or doing a strip and rebuild and would very much prefer the latter. I also want to move from slotted soffit vents to over-facia vents and would expect the felt to be renewed at the edges and guttering and downpipes all replaced. The dormer would need to be stripped and cladded and ideally insulated with celotex or similar.

So, anyone got any experience of having this sort of work done recently or even better, does anyone out there do this for a living? I would appreciate any guidance on costs if so either for over-clad or replacement.

Many thanks,
Craig.

No idea on costs, but a mate sometimes works helping do soffits. The chap who he works for is a charlatan. In fact many are. He is disappointed if he doesn't clear £700+ a day!
And if he can get away with a bodge, he will. This means felt supports often go on top of the felt as it is quicker and easier.

So my only advice is choose your contractor carefully, and watch them like a hawk. Plus get a proper quotation to avoid any confusion on their part after the job! All obvious stuff really, but it shouldn't need to be the case.

Hi,
Yeah, the company coming tomorrow is highly reputable, established in 1998 and registered on the Checkatrade site with a very high rating. I have checked them out on Companies House website and downloaded accounts and annual returns and it all looks good. I have a feeling they won't be cheap though which is why I'm trying to get an idea on costs.

I know what 3 of my neighbours paid to get an over-clad job done on the exact same house as mine using another neighbour who is a general builder but those installations are already starting to look scruffy. I've also had a quote from a firm who posted a flyer through the door with a handwritten price on it. That company didn't look so good on Companies House as they were only incorporated in May and the directors seemed to run multiple similar businesses.

Thanks again,
Craig.

i did my own similar size and cost around£1000 in materials. bought from a company in dalgety bay which is now called gap plastics, i think they have branches all over.
the thing to watch is the colour gaurantee, the cheaper stuff goes pink in a few years.
i did eaves soffits gutters and downpipes. i also used the slightly more expensive og shape gutters and square downpipes

Thanks, I was kinda tempted to do it myself but I'd need to buy two sets of ladders and probably other tools and probably take a week off work to get the job done.

I work for myself as an IT consultant and to be honest I'm in the fortunate position to be really busy just now and am almost certainly better off working and paying someone else to fit my roofline.

It's still tempting though as I find that sort of work to be almost as refreshing as a holiday!

Out of interest, how long did the job take you roughly? I'm thinking roughly 5 man-days.


[Edited on 6/11/2015 by craig1410]

You may want a hand with some of it, not easy to do the long stuff singlehanded.
Towers can be hired for reasonable money, I got a 6m+ one for £80 a week. Really sturdy professional bit of kit. All found on fleabay, up norf somewhere but was delivered from my local hire shop (about half their price!)

Your house looks computer generated Craig... it's bizarre.

Haha, yeah ours isn't quite as 'perfect' as the one in the photo. Something to do with 15 years of Scottish weather and family life!

Must be a pita getting a car out of the garage, and straight onto the grass, especially in the winter

quote:

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Originally posted by steve m
Must be a pita getting a car out of the garage, and straight onto the grass, especially in the winter

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quote:

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Originally posted by garyo
Your house looks computer generated Craig... it's bizarre.

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I second the view above.. I did my own soffit and fascia from proper wrap around scaffolding when I built our last extension. The 5 metre lengths of upvc are unwieldy so it'd be a job doing it off two ladders let alone one.

Yeah I don't seriously see myself tackling this, especially not in the winter season. I could do it but I'd have to take time off work and therefore turn away a comparable income to what I would be paying a contractor to do the job and in less time. Last thing I need is to fall off a ladder while stretching to fit a 5m length of soffit!

So has nobody got an idea of cost for this job then? All estimates welcome even just as a sanity check.

[Edited on 6/11/2015 by craig1410]

Got the quotation today.

£3772 including for the PVCu installation and £1188 if we want to go for dry verge throughout.

Prices include VAT, disposal, asbestos removal if found (highly unlikely here) scaffolding and VAT.

To be honest it's not a bad starting point given that many such quotes are initially ridiculously inflated but I hope to negotiate a bit. It's definitely a bit on the high side I'd say.

Cladding Works:
To remove all of the gutters and down-pipes from the building.
To remove all of the external timbers from the building.
- Please note that there will be no extra charged if we discover asbestos in the soffits or gable plates on the roof.
- We will remove any debris, birds nests etc.
We will check the condition of the exposed structural timbers and where required we will treat with a
deep penetrating preservative treatment.
Also if there is any decay to the rafter feet we will cut back and replace up to 1m.
We will also straight line the rafter ends.
We will check the condition of the felt underneath the tiles, and if damaged we will install a DPC under
the felt.
Then we will install an over fascia vent system.
Then we will install 19mm thick, square edge, White uPVC fascias, bargeboards and 10mm thick tongue
and groove soffits. This come with a 50 year colour fast guarantee from the manufacturers.
We would remove the timber cladding from the three sides of the dormer.
- Then we would check the condition of the exposed building paper and replace where required.
- Then we would install 100mm open v uPVC cladding in white.
We would install a new white Deep-flow gutters and down-pipes.

Dry Verge Works:
We will remove and dispose of the existing mortar fill from all gable ends of the building. This includes removal of the underlying cement plate.
We will install a perpendicular baton fixed to the uPVC at the gable ends.
We will install a dove-tail system which will be anchored to the baton mentioned above.

Comments welcome as always.
Cheers,
Craig.


[Edited on 10/11/2015 by craig1410]

Just to complete this little saga, I went ahead with the works after negotiating a small discount with the owner of the company. He explained that they operate on a thin profit margin around the 8% mark and quite honestly I believe him. From what I can gather they make up for it in volume and word of mouth referrals. The men who did the work told me that they would struggle to do the job as a 'homer' at the price I paid and said they don't know how their company does it. I developed a bit of a rapport with the guys while they were here and trust what they said.

The weather was a bit of a nightmare with storm force winds and heavy rain making it impossible to stick to the schedule without risking life and/or property. Fortunately the men were pretty flexible and did their best to make use of any part of each day they could and worked through the weekend to get it completed despite the weather. It took a full 5 days in total for 2 men so 10 man-days in all. The materials were all from FreeFoam and are guaranteed against pinking for (not kidding) 50 years. Apparently pinking is caused by lead content and these materials are lead free. Ogee gutters and square down pipes were used, all in chocolate brown colour plus brown "Klober" dry verge. Also fitted over-facial venting, new bird comb and eaves trays.

Very happy with the end result which is very tidy and guaranteed (insurance backed) for 10 years. It looks noticeably better than my 3 neighbors who all went with the overclad approach. It'll be interesting to see how they fair in the coming years.

Hopefully this is of interest to someone out there. Let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers,
Craig.