Around this time four years ago, whilst still living at home, I noticed a neighbour across the road having their soffits and facias replaced. This is what I filmed:
So many problems
To the professional of us, this video should rightly frustrate. I should also note that although it may not be obvious, it was a very windy day that day, and one gust strong enough could quite easily have caused him problems.
Did you see the skill on display has he leant away from the safety of his ladder to tap on the new PVCu fascia board over the existing and tired timber ones? Takes years of practise. Being serious for a second, over-cladding of timber soffits and fascias is never a good thing. If it is all covered and there is no way for the timber underneath to breathe, any trapped moisture will fester and will only speed up the rate of rotting.
Once rot has set it, there is every chance it can spread up into the rest of the roof, which is certainly a more serious and expensive problem. So whilst some companies might tout over-cladding as a cheap alternative, the realities if it goes wrong are very severe.
The next problem is health and safety. I’m not the biggest fan of red tape, but I am all in favour of scaffolding and proper supports when it comes to working at heights. This guy obviously should have been working from scaffolding. It was far too windy for anything else.
There is never a health and safety official when you need one. If this guy was caught, not only would he be in bother, but the home owner too. Scaffolding isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things, and for the sake of the safety of those doing the work, it is very much money well spent.
Reporting pointless
This wasn’t the first time I had seen some illegal fascia work being done. I had seen another not long after this. They were also a FENSA registered business. Fed up with garbage work being done by garbage companies, I reported the company to FENSA. I got a reply, and I’m paraphrasing here, which said it’s not our problem, report it to someone else. Think they said trading standards.
My frustration is that if FENSA registered companies can do work other than windows and doors, like roofline work, why should that sort of work not also be covered by organisations like FENSA? Anyway, that’s a post for another day I guess. Or feel free to leave your own views on that in the comments section below.
The truth of the video is that I filmed it for use in an earlier blog post. I really only uploaded it to YouTube so I could embed it. Never thought it would rack up any number of views. Hopefully it has gone some way to show home owners how replacement fascia work should not be done.
