Cast Iron, Cast Aluminium & Timber Guttering across Yorkshire

Choose cast iron where a listing or a conservation officer requires it, or where you want the genuine original material, and expect to repaint it every 5–10 years. Choose cast aluminium for the same moulded profiles with no rust and no repainting, at about a third of the weight. Most owners replacing a period roofline without a listing requirement choose cast aluminium.

Many Victorian terraces in Hull and the East Riding have a wooden box gutter — a trough — resting on the wall head behind the slates or tiles. Standard round uPVC guttering hangs from a fascia board, so it usually cannot go where a trough was. Twinplas is made for exactly this: a PVC box profile the same size as a trough, so it drops into the same position without altering the roof edge. Twinplas has its own page on this site.

Well-maintained cast iron regularly lasts 80–100 years or more — there are plenty of original Victorian runs still working. What kills it is neglect: once the paint fails, rust takes hold at the joints and the sockets crack in frost. Kept painted, it outlives every other material.

On an ordinary house, no. On a listed building you need listed building consent to change the material, and in a conservation area an Article 4 direction may restrict changes to the front of the house. We can tell you what applies before you commit, and we fit iron or aluminium wherever the original appearance has to be kept.

Yes, regularly. Like-for-like repairs to an existing cast iron or lead system usually need no consent; a change of material does, and the conservation officer will normally want the original profile matched. We work to that standard as a matter of course and can advise on what your application needs to show.

Often, yes. Cracked lengths, failed joints and rusted brackets can be replaced or re-sealed individually and the run repainted. We only recommend full replacement when several sections have gone or the brackets are pulling out of the wall.

No. Seamless (extruded) aluminium is roll-formed on site into long plain lengths and suits modern houses. Cast aluminium is cast in moulds into traditional profiles to match cast iron, which is what you want on a period property.

Yes. Lead-lined box and parapet gutters, hopper heads and downpipes are part of our lead work — the same team that does our chimney and valley lead. We fit them where a listing calls for lead or where an original lead system is being kept, and we replace stolen lead like-for-like. Our lead work page covers the detailing itself.