Fascia & Soffit Repair

Before you book

Why the fascia board decides how long your gutters last

The fascia is the board along the roof edge that your gutters are fastened to. When gutters overflow or leak for years, water soaks into the fascia, and the wood softens and rots. Once that happens, gutter hangers pull out, and the gutter sags or falls away. Re-hanging a gutter on rotted fascia is a repair that will fail within a season.

Signs of fascia damage include peeling paint along the roof edge, dark stains, wood that feels soft when pressed, gutters that will not stay tight, and gaps between the gutter and the house. Soffit damage, on the underside of the eaves, often shows as sagging panels, staining, or animals getting into the attic.

Repair usually means cutting out the damaged section back to sound wood and replacing it, then priming and painting or wrapping it with aluminum fascia cover to protect it. Rot often extends further than it looks, so a good quote includes a contingency for extra lengths if more damage turns up once the old board is off.

The cause should be fixed at the same time. If water got into the fascia because of a missing drip edge, an overflowing gutter or a leaking corner, the new board will rot again unless that is addressed. Adding a drip edge and correcting gutter pitch are often part of a lasting fascia repair.

Fascia materials: wood, PVC and aluminum wrap

Most American homes have wood fascia, usually pine, fir or cedar, painted to match the trim. Wood is easy to cut and repair, but it rots wherever paint fails and water sits. PVC and composite fascia boards do not rot and do not need painting, though they expand and contract with temperature and need the right fasteners and gaps at the joints. Aluminum fascia wrap, sometimes called fascia cladding or capping, is a thin bent cover fitted over a wood board; it protects sound wood well but hides rot if it is wrapped over a board that is already soft.

When replacing a board, ask which material is being used and why. On a house that will be repainted regularly, wood is fine. On a house where nobody wants to paint the roof edge again, PVC or wrapped wood usually makes more sense.

Fascia board repair or full fascia board replacement

Rot usually starts at the ends of fascia boards, at corners, and below gutter outlets, where water collects. If the soft area is short and the rest of the board is firm, the rotten length can be cut out and a new piece spliced in, with the joint backed and sealed. If soft spots appear in several places along the same board, or the wood behind the gutter crumbles when a hanger screw is pulled, replacing the whole board is the better repair, because the next weak spot will fail as soon as the gutter is rehung.

Water leaking from the soffit

Water dripping from the soffit, or staining on its underside, is usually a sign that water is getting behind the gutter or the fascia from above. Common causes are a missing or short drip edge, an overflowing gutter at an inside corner, ice dams pushing meltwater under the shingles, or a roof leak near the eave. Replacing the soffit panels without finding the source only hides the problem. Vented soffits also need to stay clear, because they feed air to the attic; insulation pushed against them, or vents painted shut, can make condensation and ice dams worse.

Gutter and fascia repair: replacing gutters, fascia and soffit together

When all three are worn out, doing them in one job is cheaper than doing them one at a time, because the gutter has to come down to replace the fascia anyway. The usual order is: remove the gutters, repair or replace rafter tails if they are rotten, fit new fascia and soffit, then hang new gutters on the sound board. Ask whether the quote includes the drip edge and whether the roofer needs to be involved at the eave.

Angled fascia, garages and rake boards

Some homes have fascia boards cut at an angle to follow the rafter ends instead of standing vertical. A gutter hung straight onto an angled board tilts forward and spills water. The fix is wedge blocks behind the gutter or hangers fastened to the roof deck or the rafters, so the gutter sits level. Detached garages and flat-roof extensions often have thinner, cheaper fascia boards that fail first, and the sloping rake or barge boards on gable ends rot at their lower ends where the gutter meets them.