The process of replacing a home’s soffit and fascia involves setting up scaffolds with planks at the side of the building where the soffit will be replaced. Pull out the nails at the uppermost row of siding from end to end of the wall, starting near one end of the soffit. Insert the straight end of the nail bar between the upper edge of the J-channel and the lower edge of the fascia. If the soffit is wood, the repair will be cleanest if you remove the entire board instead of cutting out damaged sections. If the soffit is vinyl or metal, remove the damaged part.
To get to the damaged or rotting soffits on the side of your home, remove the shingle molding, which is a long, thin piece of wood. Set up scaffolds with planks at the side of the building where the soffit will be replaced. Work from the scaffold and remove any trim that runs. Replacing them when needed is a frugal thing to do. Remove the old soffit and fascia by pulling as many nails as you can, being careful not to leave pulled nails on the ground.
To replace rotted soffits, follow these simple steps: remove the shingle mold, remove the rotted fascia, remove the old soffit, remove the rotted rafter, attach clat, and attach the new rafter.
📹 Effortless Fascia & Soffit Replacement Without Removing Drip Edge! | Paul Ricalde
This video provides a step-by-step guide to efficiently enhance your home’s exterior efficiently, ensuring a seamless and …
📹 How To Repair Rotten Fascia and Soffit
How to repair rotten fascia and soffit. By Mack Of All Trades.
Thank you – very much! – for posting this article. I’m preparing to do exactly this job on my century-old house. My “Blakes” are 8, 11, and 13 years old (my 16 year old isn’t interested). We watched your article together. I like that you mention good safety practices, even if in hindsight, which my impressionable children enjoyed enormously: “I should’ve seen that coming!” I’m a 54 year female, who will be on a ladder, with children better at cheering me onward than actually helping, so I’ll be using your tips of the speed square’s diamond cutout, FastCap 3rd Hands, and loosening long lengths of trim, entombed in layers of old paint and caulk, with a jab saw multi-tool blade. I already tested that part of the house for lead, which was negative, so the oscillating multi-tool is a good option. There isn’t a straight line or square corner in the house. I anticipate not being “in the groove” more than once, and will “need to pull that dog down,” just as many times. I appreciate your demonstration on how to make my seams watertight, using proper carpentry instead of relying on thick beads of caulk. In all my time subscribed to your website, this is the first day that my children learned from you with me. Thank you for being a gentleman, and making carpentry a dignified skill.
I literally just had to pause at the bee part lol 😂 and comment. stumbled across your website recently, and really appreciate your thorough explanation and especially w/ the power tool usage. my dad didn’t get to fully go through everything there is to know, (he passed away in September) and some of the things I didn’t understand or pieces missing, you filled in those gaps with your vids and I really appreciate it. Thank you. 🤗 on that note, I always wondered what the house stuff you’re currently working on in this article is called.. and now I know. on my mom’s house it’s just, 😞 wood rot in many areas.. wanted to attempt to address it.. I maybe might. It’s an older house with so many issues left and right, one small issue turns into something bigger than what it’s worth. Overall, just doing what I can around the house for my mom, after many vids from others and their techniques, yours seem to click w/ me best. Again, thank you for these and enjoy your personality. subscribed 😁
Great Info Paul! As a retired cop, and 10 years working in the trades, I like projects. I just forwarded your info to my son who recently bought a house in different city. You’re techniques and info will be extremely valuable to him because I can’t be there to help as much as I would like to. Keep up the vids!
Thanks for the awesome articles Paul you are an inspiration to many people including myself I’ve been tackling so much work around my house it was built in 1940 and there is no soffits it’s the old rafter hang over style so I wanted to have soffits and facia installed and wrapped with metal so it ends the carpenter bee 🐝 issues.
Thanks for sharing this article. I like how you explain hands-on training to remove an old fascia/soffit. I was able to remove mine because it had a leak from top of my roof. The old structure had water damage. Fixed the leak and remodeled the whole new structure. As a cabinetmaker, I like to do carpentry and learn how to do things myself. Once again, thanks Paul for this demo! Joe
@13:20 My Ingers ….lol Some nice tips….I never seen/used Fascia boards with a grove cut-out…..which explains why I was scratching my head when you said overhang the fascia by 1/8 with the soffit. That last piece of Soffit looks a little rough @14:37 (No Pun Intended) unless you just didn’t care??…just curious, I know you do good bondo work (never saw that, until you opened my eyes) thanks for the article….Nice Ladder PS:Nice Click-Bait….even nicer with no Gutters.
Wow Paul!! That turned out really nice!!! It needed to be done! Good to meet Blake! Hasn’t he been in your articles before? I loved the way you added in the plug for the Quick Connect Shutters! They worked great!!! Thank you for the article!!! I’m always glad to see you! Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!!!
Thanks for the article! Really great notes for me to take! I was just wondering what the ryobi nail gun is that you’re using and the nails you’re using with it? Is it a framing nailer, finish nailer, brad nailer? I have very limited construction experience…. Are you also cutting every fascia board at 45 degrees that meets up with another piece of fascia board? Thank you for your time!
A few questions. The vents, you didn’t mention approximation of those spaced apart on avg. Also, for your boards the vents go into you needed to paint those to keep away termites as well as aesthetics right? And, also the fascia? That outside shiney white board you put in there. What kind us that called? Is that the kind that doesn’t rot? You did just such a fabulous job on this. I’m a nervous wreck as i have severe rafter tail damage under mine. But also because i have to stand on the very top ofcthe tallest ladder i have to get this done. And rafter tails and install drip edge. You make this look so easy. Thank you.
We hired contractors to replace some fascia and soffit on our porch. Noticed it was still leaking where the old rotten wood was. Contractors said they put new flashing in but it wasn’t mentioned in our estimate. They came out and “caulked” the area. It’s still leaking. They then called me back and said they knew what the problem was without coming out a 3rd time and want to charge me another $1000. Am I getting scammed?
Glad to see you back on screen. Blake sure has gotten to be a talented young man over the life of this website. Thanks for introducing the grout hook to me. I’ll have to be sure to pick some up. They sure would’ve been handy several times lately. I’m going to file 1.5 degree trick away too! Thanks for the content. Can we convince you to do it more often?
I wouldn’t miss your articles for the world. I learn so much from them. I wish I could work side by side with you and learn all the tricks that you have acquired through the years. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge the weekend dyiers . I would love to win one of those terrific prizes that you showed at the end of your article.
I am wondering about my fascia and soffit as it is different than yours, I live in California and my home is 70 years old. Your fascia board seems to have 2x4s or 2x6s that close off the outside perimeter and attach to the rafters and then there is a 1×6 that you call the fascia which is a nicer board that you attach to the 2×6 behind it. Here we do not have the 2×6 that attaches to the rafter ends, all that is there is the thin 1×6 covering the rafter ends. I like the way your roofs are built as they seem much sturdier, but I am wondering why the differences? I am not sure if it could be weather related or just area codes or perhaps shoddy workmanship but it is odd to me. I was wondering if you knew the reason behind it. Secondly, your soffit I think I saw a vent in one place on it and was just wondering if all soffits are supposed to have vents? Our house has roof line vents into the attic, however a family room was added years ago with a flat roof and that room is very hot. In looking at it I realized there are no vents at all for this shallow flat roof and wonder if a lack of vents is holding heat in, thereby increasing the heat inside the room. We just had a cool roof put on but that room is hotter than ever. There is insulation in the flat roof space but I noticed the lack of vents and wondered if that was a contributing factor. Lastly, I am wondering If I can send you a picture of an area of my roof line that slants down as it should but meets the flat roof line fascia and soffit and ask you your opinion on the best way to fix it.
This article rocks I redid all of the fascia all the way around my home my estimated price was $2,250.00+ materials so you absolutely just saved our household over 3000 good looking out freaking awesome and it actually looks good. I swear to God, I am absolutely flabbergasted. Well done brother thank you thank you thank you thank you.
I appreciate your article but you are not addressing what caused the damage in the first place. There must have been nails dangling from the edge of the sheeting that held it and the drip edge to the sub facia and the edge of the sheeting is discolored showing water intrusion. What’s going to happen when the wind hits the un-nailed edge of the roof? What will this look like in 10 or so years?
Fixin someone else’s cobbled up mess. Alway’s happens. I’m living in an older mobile home I was going to put a little money into until I looked into it deeper. Seems this entire place is a cobble on top of another rotted cobble. Needs to be gutted and re-done. Better to buy a new one for about the same price.
The quality of your work is excellent, but i question the materials you’re using. You put up a soffit board that was very rough, i personaly would not do that especially in an area they see. Why not use sub fascia pressure treated and pvc fascia to make it so they don’t have to redo the job in the future. All of your tips are also excellent!
One of the best informational and instructional article for soffit and fascia in old house. I called so many people to repair a rotten wood of this soffit in the corner exactly like this in the article and everybody just wants to replace the whole thing with vinyl or aluminum So I guess I know now what’s beyond that rotten wood after perusal this article so will call a handyman to do the job or May be try on my own 😊. Thanks a lot for this article I am trying to fix a 1960’s house
I think I would have taken that one length of guttering down and replaced that part of the fascia board behind it. I would have also replaced the wood with pressure treated or Hardie fascia, so it would never rot again. My area has a lot of carpenter bees that drill into soft pine, so I replace all soft pine with material that they can’t drill into.
This may be a dumb question but how come ppl don’t do a paint layer before screwing in stuff, then do a 2nd layer to cover the screws? The proposed 1st layer would help keep out paint and moisture from the wood on sides that you can no longer reach; i.e. the edge of the board that is covered by the gutter. This also helps protect from termites, in my head. How well does paint adhere to caulking?
Thank you. I love that you repeat “Fascia, Sofit, Fascia, Soffit”. I also love that you show fixing 1 x 8 with the sliver of wood. The “Safety glasses not safety glasses” are awesome. Show me how you made the cuts on the end piece that was 7.5 ” on one side and 8″ on the other side.. Love the “NOT RAPToR” too. These things are important! Thanks for showing us the tools and telling us the names of them.
Great article! Seriously I just bought a house that all 4 corners of the house the facia is starting to rot and on one corner the soffit is also rotting. I need to repair it befor it becomes a big problem and I have been perusal some articles to try and help get a better understanding and by far ur article is the best I have seen so far!
Great article, I have come back to it to watch it again. But, working alone, I am trying to figure out how to get the gutter out of the way in the outside corner I need to work on, without damaging the gutter. For the fascia repair behind the gutter, you only needed to remove a small bottom edge of the fascia. Mine is rotted almost up to the top edge. I wish you had a article showing such a repair, which seems to me will require removal of the gutter.
One of my favorite products for iffy wood is Minwax Wood hardener. It’s a liquid you brush or pour on that soaks into porous wood instanttly but hardens as resin is dissolved in it. Fairly water proof too since it’s resin but will harden even particle board like a rock if you use enough. Adams Rock hard putty is another fave.
I have this kind of hole too.Power home said that it gonna cost me $13000 to replace drain pipe and fix this things. I can’t do it by myself. I just want to replace few woods that are rotten not all as power home said. Can u tell me who does this kind of work who could fix this kind of little part only ?
This is completely wrong in so many ways. Remove the gutter and replace the full width of the fascia board, not just a piece below the gutter which will eventually warp and crack. You left rotten soffit next to the brand new wood you installed. It would have been less work and lasted longer to just cut a large piece the full width of the soffit. Never paint raw wood. Prime first, then paint. That paint will last you 8 months at most. Change your website to “Hack Of All Trades” 🤣