I have a garage that was built in the late 1940's It has the original wood soffit and fascia. There is a few spots of rot on the soffit (soft spots) But otherwise the wood is good.
I was planning on installing the vinyl directly over the wood. Then installing gutters (there were never any gutters on the garage.
Anyone see any issues with this?
Depends. :-) Is there enough good wood to attach the gutters? Is the facia 1" or 1 1/2"? Replace the bad wood before covering and nail the gutters into the truss ends, not the facia boards. Covering the facia with vinyl shouldn't be a problem. When covering the soffet, you may want to use perforated soffit material so that moisture doesn't build up between the vinyl and the wood, or remove the wood totally.
Hank
Well, it will finish rotting out the wood for you within a few years. Based on the metal-skinned fascia here and on a few other houses I have seen, I'm not a fan of wrapping wood with anything that holds condensate or leaked water against it. If you must skin, make sure to leave weep holes at the low points. And I'd lose the wood soffit boards, and simply fit the ventilated panels, so as to not make a nice cozy split-level home for bees and mice.
After 60 years, 'a few soft spots' isn't bad. I'd be more inclined to replace a couple bad boards and/or stabilize the soft spots with expoxy, and get a professional scrape, sand, prime and repaint done. Probably be cheaper than vinyl. What is the rest of the garage? Bricks or clapboards?
I'll note in passing- I wouldn't skin or repaint till I looked at the roof, including soaking it well with a hose and climbing up in garage attic with a flashlight, to see where the water is getting into the soffit from. Tearoff and reshingle may be step one, especially if there is more than one layer up there. Always fix the leak FIRST.
-- aem sends...
I prefer the look of aluminum. The finished job has a neater appearance. IMHO
Either way fix the rot.
LdB
theedudenator wrote:
The roof has been replaced already. I am assuming that fixed the leaks, because it does not leak anymore.
The garage is all brick.
I could scrap and repaint, it will look good. Maybe I do that until the rot is visible. Then tear it all out and replace with new.
I guess if I put new gutters up I can always take them down and put them back up when the wood is rotted out, probably next paint job.
I would spend the extra time with the icepick (to define the edges of the mushy areas) and either the epoxy or the sheet of plywood and the jigsaw, to fix the rot while you are at it. It won't take much longer, or much money, and, and it will make your fixup last longer without worries. If you prime and paint well, the gutters should not make the fascia board rot TOO quickly. Make sure the drip edge overhangs the the gutter, and there are no water-catcher pockets up there. If the gutter is stiff enough, you can even slip washers behind gutter over the spikes, to leave a thin space for water to drain out from behind the gutter. That worked well with the old galvanized gutters- never tried it with the modern roll-form ones, which seem to be about beer-can thickness. (But they are slick to the water, and seem to hold up well.)
-- aem sends...
"theedudenator" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@q27g2000vbn.googlegroups.com...
Rotted wood will continue to rot everything around it so it needs to be removed. If the overhang is not too long, 'less than two feet', attach the soffit to the bottom of the fascia and bridge back to a J channel or F channel attached to the wall, this the soffit below the wood leaving an air space. I like to attach the J or F channel a little higher so the soffit is actually pitched a little away from the wall. Like this if the roof leaks and water gets on the soffit it will run away from the house. Use some vented soffit if needed for ventulation into the attic. If there is no attic vents there is enough air leakage past the soffit to prevent condensation. Covering the fascia should be with aluminum formed to fit. It should turn under the soffit at least an inch with a hem, I always hem everything I can to make it straighter and neater. The top should turn back under the shingles to prevent water from getting behind the aluminum. If there is an existing drip edge and the fascia cover runs straight up behind the drip edge, the fascia cover will be wavey. There needs to be some breaks (bends) in the aluminum to cause it to run straight and not wavey. Make sure there is enough shingle hanging over past the fascia. It is surprising how far water will run uphill under the bottom of a shingle. If it touches the fascia it will run even further, wetting the decking. Make sure the shingles are not turned up on the ends by decking not properly nailed, fascia or fascia cover mounted too high or some other cause. Turned up shingles will cause water to run backward onto the decking.
My fascia was skinned as you described, and still rotted out. The 'wrap around the bottom' keeps the wood wet all the time. Water doesn't just come from rain, it comes from condensation, snow/ice cornices, a damp day, etc. If you wrap wood, it needs weep holes.
I'll never be a fan of wrapping wood. If you don't want to paint, make the fascia out of trex, or aluminum c-channel, or something. Same thing for the 'coil stock wrapped' brickmold and sills on windows and doors, that the siding companies push so much. The seal ALWAYS fails eventually, and the wood gets soaked.
-- aem sends...
condensation.
Properly done there is an escape for mositure much better than any weep hole could ever be. The aluminum fascia cover hangs approx 1/2 to 3/4 inch below the bottom of the wood, depending on the soffit you use, covering the ends of the vinyl soffit. Then it turns back under the vinyl for an inch or so. I always put a hem on the edge of the 1 inch break to make it neater. Suppose the hem would prevent water from running off, still it would have to stack up 1/2 inch high in order to hold it in contact with the wood. Drilling a weep hole would do no good whatever. Weep holes would only weep any water away from the vinyl and water will not rot vinyl. I have never saw a problem with wood rotting behind any coil stock properly installed unless it was already in the process of rotting when it was covered or that was caused by a roof leak or something similar. Condensation can only occur if there is air behind the aluminum. If it is in direct contact with wood it cannot sweat.
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