Just had a glut of soffit sellers at the door - what are they? I've managed to work out they're bits under the eaves - is that right? What do they do? Should I have vents in them?
I could grill the next salesman who comes round I spose but now I've thought of that I'll have to wait years probably!
I not an expert on this but I have done some work on them and will be getting our replaced in the near future. So have been reading around a bit.
Your right by the way. The fascias and soffits are the bits that protect the eaves from the weather. The soffit is the bit on the bottom, the fascia the bit that faces outward. They are often (I think mistakenly) called bargeboards.
Older houses tend to have wood which needs periodic treatment (scraping down and painting) modern properties have uPVC which lasts longer and doesn't need treating. It's a fairly expensive job to replace them but you don't have to have it done very often.
Painting the wooden variety is fairly tough work (you spend a long time up the ladder) but a DIY job as long as you don't mind heights. Replacing wood for uPVC is probably not a DIY job.
It's important to keep them maintained and in at least fair condition as they are protecting the ends of the roof timbers which are difficult to replace.
As for vents. Not sure really. I see ones with and without vents. I am sure there is probably a building reg about it somewhere but I really don't think it matters.
doozer wrote: ... snipped
... snipped
barge boards are the bits on the gable ends
The fascias also are probably holding up your last line of roof tiles. If you have wooden fascias and want to change to plastic, you can either replace the wood with plastic ( biggish job - if you have slates, the bottom row will need to be retained by lead or copper tingles in future as they will have been nailed to the old wooden fascias - at least, mine were ), or you can clad the present wooden fascias with plastic. This is OK if the fascias are in good nick, but if they are rotting away they will probably continue to rot behind the plastic.
Not sure if the vents are there to keep plastic-clad wooden fascias reasonably dry at the interface, or if they're a building regs type thing to allow airflow through the attic space and over the rafters ( to prevent rot ).
Andy.
They're "people" who weren't able to sell uPVC windows, cheaper electricity or whatever else.
Cut The vent grill in the soffit allows air to flow to form a cross flow to pervent condensation
Cut The fascias supports the bottom row of slates or tiles, also the rainwater support brackits are fix to it. The soffit is a a closeir of the open space below the roof rafters and the wall. This can be boxed or fitted at the same rake as the roof pitch to the underside of the rafter. Barge boards are fitted at the gable end and run from the eave to the ridge.
Keith Slater & Tiler
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