Soffit and fascia cost

Replacing soffit and fascia together costs $9 to $30 per linear foot installed, so a typical house with 150 to 200 feet of eave runs $1,500 to $5,000. Fascia alone is $5 to $12 a foot and soffit alone $4 to $22.

These are the two boards at the edge of the roof that nobody can name until one of them rots. The fascia is the vertical board the gutter hangs on. The soffit is the horizontal underside between the fascia and the wall.

What each costs

Access drives it as much as material. Single-story with clear ground beneath is the cheap case. Two-story, or eaves over a deck or a slope, means staging and adds 25% to 50%.

Why they rot, and why it is usually the gutter's fault

Wood fascia fails at the top edge, where water runs off the roof behind a gutter that is overflowing, misaligned or full. The board stays wet, paint fails, and rot moves along the run.

So replacing rotten fascia without fixing the gutter is replacing it again in five years. Any quote worth having looks at both.

The second common cause is a missing or badly fitted drip edge. That strip of metal along the eave exists to throw water clear of the fascia and into the gutter. Plenty of older roofs do not have one.

Aluminum wrap is not a repair

The common cheap offer is to wrap the existing wood fascia in aluminum coil stock. $5 to $12 a foot, looks new immediately, never needs painting.

If the wood underneath is sound, this is a reasonable finish. If it is not, wrapping seals wet wood behind metal and the rot continues out of sight, taking the rafter tails with it. By the time it shows, the repair is structural rather than cosmetic.

Ask whether the wood behind the wrap has been inspected and replaced where soft. A contractor who wraps without looking is selling you a five-year delay.

The soffit is doing a job

Soffit vents are the intake half of roof ventilation. Air enters at the eave, runs up under the deck, and leaves at the ridge. Without intake, ridge vents pull air from inside the house instead of from outside, and the attic stays hot.

Two things go wrong constantly:

Solid soffit. Older houses often have no vents at all. Adding vented panels during a soffit replacement costs almost nothing extra and fixes half a ventilation problem.

Insulation blocking the vents. Attic insulation blown right to the eave seals the intake from inside. Baffles — rigid channels that hold insulation back from the vent — cost $3 to $8 each and are missing in a startling number of attics.

If the soffit is off for replacement, that is the moment to check both. It is never cheaper to look.

What else turns up once it is open

• Rotten rafter tails, the ends of the rafters the fascia nails to: $50 to $150 each
• Wasp and bird nests, and the entry holes that let them in
• Missing or crushed baffles
• Old wiring for eave lighting that was never removed

Frequently asked questions

Can I replace just the fascia?

Yes, and often that is all that has failed. The soffit is protected by the roof overhang and usually outlasts the fascia by years.

Should I replace with wood or PVC?

PVC or composite on a house where the eave is high, painting is awkward, or the gutter has failed once already. Wood on a period house where profile matters, or where the eave is easy to reach and repaint.

Is this a job to bundle with the roof?

Yes. The drip edge is being replaced anyway, the gutters usually come off, and the crew has the eave staged. Doing it separately means paying twice for access.

How do I know the fascia is rotten?

Press it with a screwdriver at the top edge behind the gutter. Sound wood resists. Soft wood takes the tip. Check at the low points of the gutter run, which is where water sits.

Do I need vented soffit everywhere?

Continuous vented soffit along the whole eave is ideal. What matters is total intake area matching the exhaust at the ridge, roughly balanced. An attic with a long ridge vent and four small soffit vents is worse ventilated than one with neither.