Guttering Installation near you

HSE states that asbestos was widely used until 1999, when it was banned, and that it may be part of any commercial or domestic building built or refurbished before the year 2000. Its guidance on locations names downpipes and gutters among the components to expect, often attached at the end of cement roofs, alongside cement roof sheeting and insulating board soffit panels at the underside of roof eaves.

The good news is that this does not automatically mean a licensed contractor. HSE's non-licensed work guidance covers maintenance on asbestos cement products such as roof sheeting, tiles and rainwater goods, and the removal of asbestos cement products including roof sheeting and rainwater goods, provided the material is carefully handled and removed without breaking it up, and provided those doing the work have had the correct level of information, instruction and training. Work likely to cause significant break-up moves into notifiable non-licensed work or, for some materials, licensed work.

What this means when you ask for a quotation is simple. On a house of that age, ask the installer how they are identifying what the existing goods are made of, how they intend to take them down, and how the waste is being disposed of, because asbestos waste has to be disposed of legally as hazardous waste rather than mixed with normal rubbish.

A gutter run is designed around where the water is going. The installer sets the outlet position first, then works the falls back from it so that water moves rather than stands, fixes brackets at the spacing the system requires so the run does not sag between them, and sets the gutter under the line of the roof so that water leaving the covering lands in it rather than over the front edge. Downpipes then take the water to a gully, a back-inlet gully or whatever discharge arrangement the property has.

The fascia is part of the same conversation. If it is soft, the brackets have nothing to hold, so a gutter job on an older house often includes fascia and soffit work. The Planning Portal's guidance is that replacing fascia board or soffit will not normally need building regulations approval, but warns that the work should not reduce ventilation to the roof void, since that can cause condensation and damp timber, and that where the existing system has vents installed a similar system will need to be maintained.

Access decides the equipment. HSE allows a ladder for work at height where a risk assessment shows that equipment offering a higher level of fall protection is not justified because of the low risk and short duration of the task, recommends alternative equipment where the task would mean more than 30 minutes at a time on a leaning ladder or stepladder, and expects the ladder to be level, stable and secured where reasonably practicable and used by someone competent or supervised by one. A full replacement round a house is not a short-duration task, which is why towers, platforms or a scaffold appear on a serious quotation.

Rainwater drainage sits under Approved Document H in England, which the Planning Portal describes as covering drainage including foul and surface water and rainwater, and sanitary waste disposal, with the current edition valid from 1 October 2015. Straight like-for-like replacement of rainwater goods is at the lighter end of that, but anything altering where the water goes, or a new discharge arrangement, is a building control question worth asking before the work rather than after.

Planning permission is rarely engaged. The Planning Portal's position on drains and sewers is that you do not usually need to apply for planning permission for repairs, maintenance and very minor works, that permitted development rights may be available for work going beyond that, and that you should check with the local planning authority that those rights have not been removed. A listed building is the exception that matters: national planning practice guidance is that works altering a listed building in a way that affects its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest need listed building consent, and doing them without it is a criminal offence, which is why cast iron is often replaced with cast iron rather than plastic.

Ownership is the other check. The Planning Portal advises clarifying ownership and responsibility before modifying or maintaining drains, since drains, sewers and manholes may be shared with neighbours or owned by the sewerage undertaker. In Scotland, the technical handbook lists replacement of a fitting or equipment by another of the same general type, including a rainwater gutter or downpipe, among work not requiring a building warrant, provided the work is to a standard no worse than at present. Northern Ireland deals with drainage in its own Technical Booklet N.

Most overflows are not capacity problems, they are outlet problems. Leaves, moss washed off the slope above, silt and the occasional tennis ball collect at the outlet, the hopper head or the swan neck, and the run backs up until it spills at its lowest point. Water then runs down the wall, and a wall that stays wet for weeks moves the problem from the gutter to the masonry, which is exactly what Approved Document C addresses when it deals with resistance to moisture in floors, walls and roofs with examples of damp proofing and ventilation provisions.

Sagging and backfall come from the fixings and the setting out. Brackets spaced too widely, screwed into a soft fascia, or a run laid to the wrong fall will hold standing water, and standing water in a gutter freezes, weighs and pulls. Joints then open under the movement, which is why a gutter that drips at a joint often has a fall problem rather than a seal problem.

The tell-tale worth learning is where the damp shows inside. A stain that tracks vertically down the inside of an external wall, worst after prolonged rain and roughly below a gutter joint or a downpipe, points outside at the rainwater goods rather than at the roof. Fixing the wall without fixing the gutter simply resets the clock.