DH Painter & Decorator repaints timber fascias, soffits and gutters in Delapre, about 0.9 miles south of Northampton town centre. The 1930s houses west of London Road mostly have pitched roofs with timber roofline boards, and tree cover from the park makes rot checks a standard part of the job. We quote free.
Why rooflines wear quickly on this side of London Road
Delapre’s houses sit opposite heavy tree cover. Mature trees line the London Road boundary of the abbey park, and the 500 or so acres of parkland and woods beyond have heavy tree cover. Leaves, seed and twigs land in gutters on the houses opposite and on the nearby streets, especially in autumn. A gutter that stays blocked overflows onto the front of the fascia board and soaks the back of it, and that is where the paint fails first and the timber softens.
Because the houses are almost all double glazed now, the fascias, soffits and bargeboards are often the main timber left outside a Delapre house. That makes them the part most worth keeping sound, and the part most likely to have been left longest.
What Dean checks before a brush comes out
Painting over soft wood just hides the problem for a season. On a 1930s roofline that may have had decades of gloss, the survey covers:
- Probing the lower edge of each fascia and the soffit board ends for soft or rotten timber, especially under gutter joints and outlets.
- Looking for staining down the board face, which points to a gutter that has been overflowing.
- Checking gutter brackets and downpipe clips for rust or movement.
- Noting thick, cracked old paint that needs taking back rather than overcoating. Old layers on interwar joinery can contain lead, so we sand wet or scrape rather than dry-sanding.
Short rotten sections can be cut out and spliced. If a whole board has gone, we will tell you so you can decide whether to replace it in timber or have it capped. The painting process itself is set out on our main fascia and soffit painting page.
Terraced rooflines that run across several houses
On an interwar terrace, such as the rows of mid-terraces on Delapre Crescent Road and Forest Road, the fascia line can run unbroken from house to house. When only your section is painted, the join with next door shows. We stop at a clean, logical break, usually the line of the party wall, and keep the new colour off the neighbour’s board. If neighbours want theirs done at the same time, the colours and gloss level can be matched along the run, which looks better from the street and means one ladder set-up covers more roof.
Mid-terrace houses here have no side passage, so the back roofline means carrying ladders through the house. We protect the floors along the way and do the rear in one go so it is only carried through once or twice.
The London Road semis
The interwar semis on the London Road frontage are larger, at roughly 100 to 120 square metres, so the roofline runs are longer than on a mid-terrace. They face a trunk road, so traffic film coats the boards as well as tree debris. We wash down before sanding, keep ladders and kit inside the front boundary where we can, and work the side nearest the road at the quieter times you tell us about. Clearing the gutters as part of the job, before painting, stops the same overflow starting again.
If you want the walls, door and gates done in the same visit, see what else applies on our Delapre area page. For how roofline work is priced, our painter and decorator cost guide explains what affects the figure.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
