How to Fit Soffits to your Home

Let’s not run before we can walk. With DIY jobs it’s all too easy to get ahead of yourself, only to be left with an almighty mess a few minutes later. So, put those tools down, put the kettle on and read our guide on how to fit a soffit to your home.

First off, what on earth is a soffit?

Relax; it’s all a lot simpler than it sounds. A soffit can be found between your fascia board and the wall of your home. Its purpose is to protect your house against the elements by keeping the inclement weather our shores are often subjected to well away from the vulnerable innards of your home. The good news is that fitting a soffit is not a difficult job, and is one anybody with even moderate DIY experience will be able to get to grips with.

Current building regulations dictate that the soffits on new builds should include a ventilation system (a one inch gap along the perimeter) to allow a through flow of air into and out of your home. However, when fitting a replacement soffit this is not necessarily something you have to consider unless you wish to do so.

Okay, so with the preparatory work complete, let’s have a look at how you can complete the job with admirable efficiency.

First off, level-up

One of your first tasks is to make sure any work you do is level. Nothing says “I’m a hopeless amateur” like a slanting soffit. Find the level from the subfascia to the back wall and attach the j-channel. At this point it is advisable to ensure the line of the j-channel is slightly higher than level. This little tip ensures that any water runoff must go uphill before it reaches the exterior of your home. This means rainwater ends up safely on the ground rather than running down the wall of your home and undermining the structural rigidity.

Cutting the soffit

DIY is not synonymous with efficiency, but let’s try to make a change. Rather than cutting your soffits to size one by one, why not cut the materials fresh out of the box while they are still together. By cutting through a small stack of soffits at a time, not only will the uniformity of the sizing increase, but you’ll save yourself some valuable time you can spend do something a bit more fun.

Don’t rely on stick alone

When you’re attempting to stick your j-channel to a concrete wall, no matter how strong the adhesive, the j-channel may not be as secure as you might like. A tip for bypassing this potential problem is to attach a 1x2 nail board to the wall with a few nails of your own, preferably shot from a nail gun if you have one. This then makes the j-channel far easier to attach.

45 is the magic number

Once you have worked your way to the end of the soffit we recommend you add a 45 degree angle to each corner. The reason being: by ending your j-channel precisely at each end you will be able to save on the materials you use and reduce the cost. Also, continuing with the waste not want not theme, once you have cut the soffit, any waste pieces can be used on the opposite sides.

If you have a staple gun, use it!

Nailing in each individual soffit strip can take a good deal of time. One method of greatly increasing your productivity whilst fitting soffits is to use a staple gun. Using either a pneumatic or handheld staple gun, you should staple inside the groove of each individual soffit piece making sure no part of the staple is exposed once the final part of the fascia covers the soffit.

And hey presto! What you should be left with by this point is professional looking roofing for your home with some brand spanking new soffit boards and a job that cost far less than it would had you hired the experts, as well of course as a beaming sense of self satisfaction.