Refurbishing your home takes care and attention, and it is vital you get the best results that you can. Aesthetics are just as important as functionality, and whether you are looking to improve the inside or outside of your home you should always consider using fascias as a great way to enhance aesthetic appeal.
Fascia boards are often thought of as being purely functional, but if you didn’t have them there you’d soon notice the difference. They’re commonly used for roofing applications to make any joins neat and tidy, giving a streamlined look to your finished roof. But, they’re becoming increasingly common as a way to enhance your internal space as well, often being seen in kitchens where they’re installed in the area above wall-mounted cabinets to finish the look off perfectly.
The right UPVC fascia boards can be used to great effect, and with a variety of options to choose from you’ll soon find the boards that can enhance your home to your satisfaction. You’ll find a range of size and colour options to fulfil a range of different needs, ensuring you’ve got the look that you want.
Here at Bliby Plastics, we know how effective UPVC fascias can be at enhancing your home, and that’s why we offer a range of different options to suit all requirements. Our extensive product catalogue ensures we’ll have just what you’re looking for, and with great prices you won’t have to spend a fortune to get the result that you want. So, come to us today and see how beneficial these boards can be.
Installing plastic cladding or fascias presents a relatively straightforward task for the experienced DIY enthusiast. Any successful installation, however, is dependent on firstly securing quality cladding units and fascia boards, together with the correct fitting accessories.
When buying plastic wall cladding it is vital that each unit can slot together in a secure fashion with each adjacent unit. Extruded – or precisely shaped – panels such as ‘v-groove’ or ‘shiplap’ panels are designed to ensure a tight, overlapping fit. This is particularly important for exterior wall cladding since the latter must ‘shut out’ the elements – especially wind and rain – in order to offer effective protection for the underlying wood, cement or brickwork.
Buying the most appropriate fascias, on the other hand, will depend on whether the latter can be fitted directly on to the existing wooden facia boards (standard fascias for example), or whether the wooden fascia boards are so weak or rotten that the latter need to be firstly removed and the new fascias fitted directly on to the feet of the rafters (maxi fascias for example). Installing the correct fascias will ensure the area between the end of the roof and the top of the walls is weather-proofed.
A range of recommended screws are available to attach fascias and cladding units to brickwork and masonry. Alternatively, polytop pins with various coloured heads to match the colours of the units can be used to fix the units to wooden beams.
At Bliby Plastics, we can advise on the most appropriate and cost-effective wall cladding and drainage pipes solutions for any style of property.
When selling one’s property, the fascia board – the panel immediately below the roof – is often missed off the list of home improvements necessary to attract potential buyers. A worn or improperly attached fascia can however lead to long-term damage to a property. In addition, worn, damaged, or even incongruous-looking fascias can undermine a property’s aesthetic appeal.
Fascias are designed to protect that vulnerable part of the property where the brickwork meets the edge of the roof. If a fascia is defective this can lead to the property being exposed to a whole range of destructive elements such as frost, water, and intense heat. In the long-term such exposure will not only lead to severe damage to the exterior of the property, but can also encourage problems such as the spread of damp-induced rot in the property’s interior. Proper drainage pipes should also be considered.
Not only, however, will inferior fascias deter potential buyers worried about unnecessary maintenance and repair costs; a poor quality fascia will also make the whole property appear unsightly. In the same way that a shop’s uPVC fascia boards can attract or discourage potential customers from stepping in, so too can the fascia board on a domestic property help to entice or repel potential buyers.
For this reason it is important when arranging for a fascia board to be fitted that a lot of thought is given to both its style and its colour.
At Bliby plastics we can demonstrate how choosing plastic fascias can provide the most secure, long-term protection for your property, and the widest range of wood grain-effect colours and styles.
A major reason for choosing plastic cladding over wood is the Great British climate – namely the wind and rain. With modern uPVC fascias able to mimic oak, ash and other timbers, it offers a durable, attractive low-cost solution with no risk of warping or rotting. There are no expensive seasonal timber treatments to worry about either.
However, plastic cladding isn’t completely weatherproof. Embrittlement and dulling can occur, especially once it’s been buffeted by the wind and rain a few times. This, plus UV effects, can seriously shorten the life of the product, or at least make it look unsightly. People often paint white plastic cladding, either to improve its appearance or with the mistaken intention of preventing UV degradation. Don’t. Unless it’s a special UV-protective product designed specifically for plastic cladding, paint can cause embrittlement and even severe distortion, especially with darker colours.
Another area of risk is wind loading. People forget that plastic fascias and the like are a lot lighter than timber, and thus have to be held down with more fixings. This is because wind has a strong suction effect, and will lift cladding that is not fixed down securely with plenty of nails or screws. You also have to remember that while wood has a rough grained matrix which helps to keep nails in place, plastic cladding does not. So buy good quality, stainless steel annular or spiral fixings such as those we at Bliby Plastics sell on our site. These won’t rust, and have a ridged surface to give a tight grip.
Finally, plastic cladding reacts to temperature changes and trapped moisture. Thermal expansion gaps and drainage cavities must therefore be incorporated, and any timber battens fully weatherproofed.
Frequently asked questions about plastic fascias, wall cladding and fascias in general are varied. At Bliby Plastics we hope we have the answers to all your questions. Some of the questions can also be quite interesting, especially the ones about improvements being made in the bathroom.
For example, whether or not it is possible to install fascias over tiles that are already there. As long as the existing tiles have been firmly fixed to the wall this should be perfectly feasible. It is best, however, to ensure that the panelling’s extra thickness does not impede the use of fixtures already in the bathroom, bath taps, for instance, or doors.
In some cases older bathrooms’ walls are half tiled. The tiles themselves are difficult to remove; therefore it is easier to batten out the top half of the bathroom level. The panels can then be installed by sticking them to the tiles and stapling the top half of them to the battens.
There are also special procedures to be followed when installing panels with toilets or basins that are wall hung. You should drill through the panelling, into the wall as you normally would. Insert the wall plugs and ensure they have gone completely through the panels and into the wall. It may be necessary to use longer screws allowing for the panels’ thickness. Do not over tighten the screws because you may crush the panelling. It is also possible to attach panels to the bathroom ceiling using adhesive and a staple gun. We can supply plastics and fascias as required.
Plastic materials do not always get the reputation they deserve. It is not uncommon to perceive plastic as a budget alternative to other, more traditional types of material. An example of this prejudice is evident in planning laws surrounding listed buildings. Plastic guttering on doors and windows are generally considered to be a material not in fitting with the setting. Whilst we may aspire to the idea of living in a picture postcard village, which happens to have little or no plastic anywhere, this poses a problem of both inconsistency of thought and action, in addition to arguably making life unnecessarily difficult.
It is no accident that plastics are so widely used in construction, and it is almost certain that the internal fixtures and fittings of all but the most religiously maintained listed buildings will include plastic quite extensively. Quite simply, plastic is common because it is an excellent material with a broad range of uses.
Plastic guttering is flexible, yet durable and easy to install. Plastic drainage offers versatility and durability, in addition to a simple and effective watertight solution. Along with doors, windows, fascias and other applications, plastic is quite simply used more broadly than any other material in a construction setting.
If you are not restricted by arbitrary planning laws, your home will doubtless need plastic fittings at some point in its life. At Bliby Plastics, we supply an extensive range of such products from our premises in Kent, and we deliver throughout the UK on a daily basis.
The chances are that you might not even be aware that you have a fascia, but it’s only a matter of time before your fascias will begin to suffer the ravages of time, and will need either repairing or full replacement. This process isn’t as difficult as it may first seem, however, and with some common sense and a little bit of elbow grease, you may find that installing fascias is really quite simple.
In order to be able to repair a problem, you first need to identify a problem, which is why it is essential that you inspect you fascias and guttering on a regular basis. This way, any damage that does occur can be repaired long before it gets so serious that a full on replacement is in order.
As the essential purpose of fascias is to hold the gutters in place (along with an aesthetic purpose), to get access to a damaged fascia you will first need to remove your gutters. This in itself is a serious job, and especially if you have heavy cast iron guttering you will definitely need someone to help you, or perhaps even a professional.
Once you have access to the fascia the process of repair should be fairly easy, provided the fitting hasn’t rusted into place (if so these can be removed with a padsaw), and will simply involve removal of the old fascia and replacement with a new piece. A word of warning, though – in some areas and for some houses, the use of plastic fascia boards may not be permitted, so always do your research before investing in anything.
