Deciding to fix it
My house had wood soffit and facia board that needed repainting every few years. I finally decided it was time to put up aluminum to cover it with it so my painting days would be over. I decided to use white for the color so it would blend in with the house.
The materials
I purchased the materials at a local lumberyard near my house. After measuring the length of my facia boards and figuring the square footage of the soffit, I knew how much material I needed. This consisted of the soffit material which comes in 12 foot lengths and most generally 12 inches wide. One box of this soffit will usually cover approximately 2 square. The rest of the material consisted of the aluminum facia cover, some white stainless steel nails, and a j channel that attaches to the house.
My tools I used
It took very little tools to install my new soffit. They consisted of a pair of snips to cut aluminum with, a good hammer,utility knife, straight edge, and a tape measure. I had a pair of saw horses with a piece of plywood on top to use as a table for cutting my material. I used a sturdy 6 foot fiberglass ladder to help me reach and install the soffit.
Getting to the work
Installing the soffit and facia is generally pretty easy. I first installed the j channel on the soffit where it meets the house. They were in 12 foot lengths and some had to be cut to size with the snips. I nailed these on with some of the nails I had purchased. My next step was installing the facia cover, which was my only real problem I ran into. The facia cover needs to be slid under the drip edge shingle starter and be able to drop down approximately 1/2 inch under the facia board for the soffit to slide into. A 4 inch wide facia cove was not quite wide enough while the 6 inch cover was too wide. My only option was to trim down the 6″ cover to fit. Using the straight edge, I scored about 1 inch off the top part of the cover, and then snapped it off.
Finishing it up
I measured from the inside of the j channel to the inside lip of the facia cover. You do not want the fit too tight because after cutting the soffit to the right width, they – must be slid in a piece at a time through the channels. This is easiest done in sections so you do not have to slide the soffit so far. Install one j channel and a facia cover, slide the cut soffit pieces in which have interlocking edges. I used a small finishing nail to install the soffit pieces. This was a very fast job and will save me from a lot of painting.