facias and soffits; paint or PVC covers?

Well, the timber will need to be sound before it can be covered. Some repairs are usually needed. No simple answer.

Chris Holford formulated the question :

Once it is all stripped off and redone properly in PVC, there should be no further need for any maintenance.

In message , harry writes

I would have thought that all that was necessary would have been for there to have been enough sound wood to attach the PVC covering to. However, I reckon that the wood (even where tatty) should be given a goodly dose of proper preservative.

Remove said timber fascias, soffits and bargeboards and replace with properly specced and fixed UPVC with any necessary supports at the rear faces to take aerials and BT telephone line fixings - this gets over the problem of rotten/tatty timber which will still need renewing in the distant future anyway. Some will differ, but I believe that covering timber fascias with UPVC is simply hiding problems - and in fact, near to where I live is a church that has had its 'tatty' bargeboards & soffits covered with UPVC in the past and the whole lot is now hanging on just a few pieces of rotting bargeboards and rafter sprockets.

Note:

If this is done on a steep-pitched slate roof, then care should be taken to properly support and fix gutter brackets as they seem to be ripped off quite easily by 'snow slides' after heavy falls of the stuff - seen a few like that during winters of heavy snow falls.

Probably the best advice.

Get a quote for _replacing_ the timber with PVC fasias, rather than covering up something which can then rot without being unseen.

For timber facias which I've done myself, they're still perfect after (I think) over 15 years. Actually I unscrewed them, took them down, washed them, and refitted them a couple of years ago. They were still good as new, no repainting required.

I've never seen professionally done ones last anything like that long before the paint fails, but they don't go to anything like the effort I did to prepare and finish them off. (Rot protector, aluminium primer, couple of undercoats, couple of top coats, all applied before fitting.)

That's a lot of work!