Our medium sized 3 bed detached house is 19 years old and in fairly good
condition for its year.

The exterior rendering has been painted about every 5 years or so. The
windows were replaced with aluminium 8 years ago so no work required there.

Starting the middle of last year a hole appeared in one of the box ends to a
front barge board just behind the gutter. This finally culminated in the
occupation of a pair of Starlings which successfully produced a brood of
young.

Now just this last month the Starlings were evicted by a pair of Ravens or
they could be Crows..........black with big beaks and cawing a
lot..............they looked very out of place trying to occupy a 200mm
square box.

So its me, with no head for heights, up a 4 meter ladder to carry out a
temporary repair.............which I must add looked very pro when finished.

Following this we agreed to get a costing to replace all the box boards, 6
off in total measuring about 200mm square x 10mm thick each. The
fascias/soffits are all fine apart from one short length about 2 metres
which we thought just might be replaced. To be included in the work was the
remove and clean the old boards plus 2 coats of Sadolin. The only difficult
access was that to the rear of the house they would have to straddle our 5
metre wide conservatory to reach the roof safely.

We estimated approximately £50 to £75 in material costs with the wood and
Sadolin but had no idea of the cost for access equipment, so thought £400 to
£500 for the work would be a good budget cost after all 19 years it sounds
very economical.

So we then get in the local Roofing and Gutter company (no
names)............stick with a pro company to be sure of a good job and
someone to go back to should the need arise.............to provide the
estimate. The suit came and went in a flash.

The estimate arrived yesterday and this is where the Vultures come
in.....................£5000

come back Ravens..............all is forgiven.

dj