Soffits, fascias and guttering installation in Borehamwood

Installation Gallery

UPVC fascias, soffits and guttering

We have written before on these blogs about the potential danger of asbestos as a building material, which was widely used from around the 1950s.

Prolonged exposure can lead to asbestosis, a disease caused by inhaling tiny fibres which can lodge in the lungs, creating severe breathing problems and even cancer. However, the material is only dangerous when broken up and disturbed, causing the fibres to float around as a fine dust.

Asbestos was banned as a building material over 25 years ago, following many cases of workers contracting the disease, but Summit Cladding often comes across older properties where it is still in situ, as with this end-of-terrace house in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.

Remove or leave in place?

To the untrained eye, the original soffits on the property looked like wood, as there was little to indicate they were made of asbestos.

Our client, Katie, was faced with a choice: to pay extra for a specialist company to safely remove the old soffits, or leave them undisturbed and box them in.

Summit can offer either solution, but Katie decided on the second strategy, to leave the original material in place and install white tongue and groove UPVC soffits over the top.

After fitting them we added eaves support trays to enable a more efficient rainwater flow, plus guttering and downpipes in black UPVC.

The new materials have made a big difference to the look of the house and at the same time have ensured that the potentially dangerous asbestos remains undisturbed. The perfect solution to a thorny problem.

Categorised in: Soffits & Fascias

This post was written by Summit Cladding