The short answer
A national guide puts new guttering at £30 to £70 per metre across all materials (MyBuilder, 2026), but no sourced figure exists for cast iron alone. It is heavier to fit than plastic, and restoring an existing run costs less than replacing it. It lasts longest, which changes the maths. Your fixed quote follows the survey.
What the national figures cover
The MyBuilder guide to gutter, fascia and soffit replacement (2026) gives typical UK costs of £30 to £70 per metre for guttering, £80 to £150 per metre for fascia and £100 to £180 per metre for soffit. Scaffold adds a further £20 to £40 per square metre. These are typical ranges reported by MyBuilder, not Empire prices.
That guttering range covers different materials taken together, and none of the sources we checked gives a separate figure for cast iron. Inventing one would be wrong. What can be said is where cast iron sits among the options and what moves its price.
First we measure the run and inspect the fixings and board behind it, and only then is a price fixed.
What drives the cost of cast iron
Cast iron has features that change its price compared with plastic, and each one is worth understanding before you compare quotes, because a low figure can leave things out.
- Material and weight. It is heavy, so more brackets are needed and fitting takes more people and time.
- Profile. Half-round, ogee and other sections are made in standard patterns, and an old or unusual profile may need a specialist casting.
- Finish. New cast iron arrives primed, and must be painted. Some people choose a factory-coated finish.
- Fixings. It needs strong brackets and a sound board or masonry to carry it, so rotten fascia must be put right first.
- Access. Heavy lengths on a tall frontage may mean a tower or scaffold, and on some houses the scaffold is a major share of the bill.
The weight is the reason it cannot simply replace plastic at the same labour cost. A single length of cast iron needs careful lifting onto brackets, often by two people on a tower, where a plastic length is clipped in by one. You are buying sections that are fitted with care and expected to stay for decades.
Restoring versus replacing
If a cast iron run is already on the house, restoration is often the cheaper route. The work includes cleaning the metal back, remaking joints, replacing any cracked or rusted section with a matching length, refixing brackets, and repainting inside and out.
Restoration makes sense when the metal is solid. A simple test is to tap along the base with the handle of a screwdriver: sound iron rings, while thin or corroded iron gives a dull thud and may flake. Hairline cracks usually show as a faint rust line across the section, often near a bracket where the load concentrates. If it has rusted through along a long stretch, or if multiple sections are cracked, replacement is better. Our answer on whether to fit uPVC in a conservation area is relevant to this, because the choice is not only cost: a listed or conservation-area house may need like-for-like material, and ask B&NES planning.
Restoring also keeps the original profile, which suits older houses. It spares the cost of new lengths, and it avoids disturbing the brickwork or stone where the old fixings sit, since new brackets can sometimes need new holes. Original runs on older houses are often fixed into masonry with long spikes, and drawing those out without damage takes patience, which is an argument for keeping them where they hold. Fitting the same material back is how we put a roofline right to the way it was built, and the result is a run that matches the rest of the street rather than standing out as a modern patch.
Comparing with uPVC and aluminium
The lowest price today is not always the lowest cost across the years you live in the house. Pureseal Services, whose December 2025 blog comes from the gutter-cleaning trade, gives typical lives of 10 to 20 years for uPVC, 20 to 30 years for aluminium and 40 to 70 years for cast iron, sometimes 100 or more. It is a single, low-confidence source, so treat the numbers as indicative of well-kept gutters, not as a promise.
If a plastic run needs replacing two or three times in the span a cast iron run lasts, the extra initial outlay is spread over a longer period, with the proviso that cast iron needs painting and care. Plastic needs little upkeep, which has value of its own. Cast iron asks for repainting from time to time, and the cost of that belongs in the comparison. Skipping it is the usual reason an iron gutter fails early.
Cost is not the only question. Cast iron suits period houses and keeps their look. Plastic is fine on a plain modern house. Aluminium is a middle path, with a longer life than plastic and a lighter load than iron. Our page on gutter cleaning cost shows the other side of the running costs, because every material needs clearing.
Getting an accurate price
A real price needs the run measured, the profile identified, the fixings and fascia checked, and the access assessed. Two houses with the same length of gutter can differ by a large margin because of height or board condition.
Should the boards, soffits and bargeboards also need work, doing the whole roofline at once often saves money. Our page on roofline upgrades explains how the parts fit together and why doing them in a single visit reduces access costs.
The survey is free, and we photograph the run as it stands. Our quote is then fixed and written, and our work carries a 10-year written workmanship guarantee. Read more on our gutters, soffits and fascias service page.
