How to tell if your fascia or soffit is rotting, and what fixes it

What are fascia and soffit, and why do they fail together?

The fascia is the board along the edge of your roof, fixed to the ends of the rafters. Your eavestrough is fastened to it. The soffit is the panel underneath the roof overhang, closing the gap between the fascia and your wall, and it is often vented so air can reach your attic.

All three meet at one corner of the house. Water that gets past the eavestrough reaches the fascia first and the soffit next, which is why a problem in one is so often a problem in all three. The board you can see rotting is usually the last link in a chain that starts higher up.

How can you tell if your fascia is rotting?

Look along the roof edge from the ground first, ideally the day after a heavy rain. These are the signs:

• Peeling paint or dark stains along the board, most often in a band just below or behind the eavestrough.
• A board that looks swollen, split or out of line, especially at corners and joints.
• Eavestrough that sags or pulls away from the house. The fasteners hold onto the fascia, and they lose their grip when the wood behind them goes soft.
• Icicles that form in the same spot every winter, or water that spills over the front of the eavestrough in rain.

If you can safely reach the board on a ladder, press a screwdriver into it. Sound wood resists and the tip barely goes in. Rotted wood is soft, gives way or crumbles. Check the low points and the corners, where water sits longest. If the eavestrough is on the second storey, leave the ladder in the garage and ask someone to look for you.

A board that is wrapped in metal or vinyl can hide all of this. The cover looks fine while the wood inside it rots, and the first sign may be a wrap that has bulged, loosened or started pulling away with the eavestrough.

How can you tell if your soffit is damaged?

Soffit damage is easier to spot because you look straight up at it. Watch for panels that sag, crack or have come loose, staining on the underside of the overhang, and gaps between the soffit and the wall or fascia.

Soffit usually goes after the fascia does. Water that soaks the fascia runs back into the soffit behind it, so a stained or sagging soffit panel is a good reason to check the board above it, even if the fascia looks fine from the ground.

What causes fascia and soffit to rot?

Most of the time, the eavestrough. When it leaks at the seams, overflows, or pulls away from the house, water runs down behind it and soaks the fascia, and from there it reaches the soffit. The wood stays wet, dries, gets wet again, and rots.

Overflow has a few causes, a sag, too few downspouts or a run too small for the roof, and each has a different fix. Our guide on whether to repair or replace your eavestrough shows how to tell which you have from the ground.

Winter makes it worse. Water that sits in a sagging run freezes, ice builds along the edge, and the meltwater finds its way behind the eavestrough. One customer described exactly that chain on their own house: “They identified and replaced the board behind the original eavestrough that was less than optimally installed. You can see how it sagged and this led to icicles and overflow that compromised my window sill below.” (Kristi & Chris S., Google review)

Older work can be part of it too. On an older house, the roof edge may have been changed more than once over the years. Another customer, whose job started as a straightforward eavestrough replacement, wrote that “once everything was opened up, it was clear that the roof framing and fascia had been improperly modified over the years.” (Kay D., Google review) You will not always know what is behind the board until it comes off.

What happens if you leave rotted fascia?

It gets worse, and it gets worse in a loop. Rotted fascia cannot hold the eavestrough fasteners, so the eavestrough sags further. A sagging run overflows more, which puts more water behind it, which rots more board. The problem that started at one corner spreads along the edge.

The water does not stop at the fascia either. It can soak into the soffit, run down the wall and reach what is below it, as it did with the window sill in the review above. If you were thinking of a gutter guard to stop the overflow, it will not: a guard does nothing for a sag, and our guide on whether leaf guards are worth it explains why. Left long enough, rot can move from the fascia into the ends of the rafters it is fixed to, and that is a bigger repair than replacing a board. A gap where the fascia or soffit has failed is also an easy way in for birds and animals.

None of this happens overnight, and we will not tell you it is an emergency when it is not. But it does not stop on its own, and the repair grows the longer it waits.

Can you just replace the rotted section?

Sometimes you can, and we will look at it. The question that matters is why it rotted. If water is still getting behind the eavestrough, a new piece of board in the same spot gets wet the same way, and it rots again.

There is also a practical reason the eavestrough comes into it. Your eavestrough is fastened to the fascia, so the board usually cannot be replaced with the eavestrough still in place. It has to come down. That makes it the right time to decide whether your eavestrough can go back up or should be replaced, rather than rehanging a run that caused the problem.

So the honest answer is: patch the board and leave the cause, and you will likely pay for the same repair again. Fix the cause and the board together, and you pay once.

What does fixing rotted fascia and soffit involve?

On our jobs it goes in this order:

1. Find the cause. We look at the whole edge of the roof, show you what is causing the rot, and quote the fix that lasts. The inspection and the quote are free.
2. Take the eavestrough down where the fascia behind it needs replacing.
3. Replace the rotted fascia board and cover it with a clean, finished wrap that matches your eavestrough.
4. Replace damaged or sagging soffit, matched to your fascia and eavestrough.
5. Rehang sound eavestrough, or install new seamless eavestrough formed on site and hung on the new board. If you are weighing that choice, here is how seamless compares with sectional.

One crew does the whole edge, so the colours match and one warranty covers our work. A new eavestrough on its own is usually done in a day. When soffit or fascia needs replacing too, the job can take a few days to a week, depending on material lead times, and we tell you that when we quote.

You can see finished roof edges on our gallery, or read more about our soffit and fascia repair and how we match colours.

When is it not a fascia problem at all?

Not every mark on the roof edge means a replacement, and it is worth ruling these out before you call anyone.

The paint is peeling but the wood is sound. If the screwdriver test finds firm wood and the eavestrough is draining properly, the board may only need scraping and painting. That is a painter’s job, not ours.

The panel was chewed or pushed in. Holes torn in soffit, especially near the corners, usually mean an animal has been getting into the attic. Deal with the animal first, through a wildlife removal company, before anyone replaces panels.

The water is coming from the roof, not the eavestrough. Damaged shingles or a problem at the roof edge itself can wet the fascia from above. That is a roofer’s job. If that is what we see when we look, we will tell you, and we will not sell you eavestrough to fix it.

If you have found soft board or a sagging run and want to know what is behind it, ask us for a free inspection. We will show you the cause, quote the fix, and tell you plainly if it does not need us.

Common questions

Can I just wrap rotted fascia in metal?

No. A wrap covers the rot, it does not stop it, and the wood keeps rotting underneath where nobody can see it. We replace the rotted board first and wrap the new one.

Is fascia and soffit repair covered by your warranty?

Our 10-year workmanship warranty covers new installs and replacements, so new fascia, soffit and eavestrough we put in are covered. A repair to eavestrough we did not install is not. We go through the details with you when we quote.

Will new fascia and soffit match my eavestrough?

Yes. We match soffit, fascia and eavestrough, and siding if you are doing that too. Our eavestrough comes in over 15 colours, and soffit and fascia colours vary by product, so tell us the colour you have in mind and we will confirm it when we quote.

Do you serve my area?

We work in London and the surrounding area, including Ingersoll, St. Thomas, Strathroy-Caradoc, Stratford and Aylmer. If you are nearby but not on that list, call and ask.