Porch Soffit install question

[Me]

Hi all,

I need to install some soffit on my front porch, but I'm not sure how to connect it on the house side...

I have brick on the 1st floor then it drops back a few inches to siding on the second story. At the top of the brick there's around 1 1/2 inches of space before the bottom of the porch roof truss so there's not really room to install an F channel. Can I use the top of the brick as the support for the soffit on the house side or do I need to install some sort of nailing board over the face of the brick at the top and install an F channel on the front of that? I'd rather not go that route since it would cover some of the brick & drop the soffit height a little...

Thanks!

[RicodJour]

You could handle that in a number of ways. You could rest it on the brick, hang a board with the attached channel from the roof trusses, make up an angle that sits on the brick and hang the channel from that. There are probably other ways, but without a picture I'm not sure if you're talking about a ceiling or soffit, clearances, etc.

R

[Me]

RicodJour wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Thanks for the reply! I'm hoping that I can just let it sit on top of the bricks on the house side - here's a couple of pics:

[RicodJour]

innews: [e-mail]:

You mean a porch ceiling, not a soffit, and yes, you could lay the soffit vinyl on the brick, but that's probably not the best way to go. The top of the brick might not be totally even and without a channel to keep the end of the vinyl in plane it might wander around a bit, leave a varying width gap and look kind of pathetic.

You also didn't mention which way you want the vinyl to run. Obviously the easiest is to run it the long way, but that will require you to pay much closer attention to keeping the courses straight so it doesn't appear to wander around as you look down the length of the porch. Running the vinyl the short way would require you to put up some 1x2 or 1x3 strapping/furring running the long way and that would take care of your fastening concerns at the brick. Running it the short way would probably be easier to install yourself, would require strapping and would probably leave you with more vinyl waste (assuming you don't want to join pieces that are running the short way - (you don't)), but that depends on the actual dimensions of your ceiling.

R

[Me]

Thanks for all the help again... I was planning on running it the short way since the soffit on the other side of the porch beam is running that way. I was planning on putting a nailer down the middle so that I could attach it since it's over a 24" run.

From what you said it sounds like to do it that way I'll definately need some F channel along the house to hold it in place. I'm thinking about trying to see if I can cut the F channel piece short enough to fit above the bricks & against the house - maybe even just making it a U channel and screwing it to the house through the inside part of the channel. If that doesn't work I guess I'll go with the firring strip on the outside of the brick... should that be put up with masonary screws or would liquid nails do the trick?

RicodJour wrote in news: [e-mail]:

[Colbyt]

You can cut the nailing tab off the f-channel and drill holes and attach it with screws in the actual channel part. 1/4" hex heads work well, just don't over tighten.

You won't find this suggestion in any book, but it has worked well for me for many years.