# fascia with no rafters



## joecal (Jun 30, 2012)

Hello.  I want to replace the fascia around my house.  The situation is that my house is a combination of hip and gable roof.  Where the roof is hip I have rafters coming down and the fascia is nailed to these rafters so all I have to do is take down the old and attach the new fascia.  What I need advise on is the parts of my house that have gable roofs-- they do not have any rafters to nail my new fascia to.  The present fascia there is only attached to the one single rafter at the apex of the roof and the other end is attached to the adjacent fascia.  I figure that there are also nails from the roof above nailed down onto the fascia.  Any suggestion as to what my options are for nailing down the new fascia on the gable roof?  I've gone on line to see if there are any 45 degree type brackets I can order that I could nail through the walls into the studs and attach my rafters to.  Any suggestions are appreciated.  Thank you.


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## BridgeMan (Jul 1, 2012)

I'm having trouble trying to visualize what your situation is.  There has to be something supporting the roof sheathing/soffit that extends past the wall, yes?  Unless you have a very tiny overhang, like a few inches, maybe?

Someone should be along shortly to show you how to post a picture or two of the situation.


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## CallMeVilla (Jul 2, 2012)

BridgeMan is right.  You need to post pics.  The Quick Reply box has an option for doing this  --  use "Attachments" where you can select the picture by browsing.  Wait for the pics to load before trying to post your next response.

Fear not!  Hope is on the way.  Besides, it never rains in LA in July, right?


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## joecal (Jul 2, 2012)

Hello, thank you for the responses.  Wife and camera are on vacation so I looked online for something similar to my situation.  If you look at the attached photo you will see that on the two walls that face you (two gables) there are no rafters extending out from inside the house to the outside.  In other words there is no overhang rafter extending out beyond the building line and creating an overhang that the facia can be nailed to.  Some might say there are no outriggers.  On the same photo if you look on the left side you will see that there are 3 rafters that extend beyond the building line and if someone wanted to they could cut a piece of fascia and nail it to these 3 extended rafters.  This is similar to my situation.  Where my roof line is hip (horizontal) I have rafters overhanging past the building line and my fascia is nailed to that.  Where my house roof is gable I only have one main beam exending past the building line at the top (apex).  If this doesnt clear it up I can draw a picture or wait til the wife gets back.  Here in southern Cal with no camera and no hot meals, thanks again,  Joe


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## nealtw (Jul 2, 2012)

Can't access your picture but these thing are usually built in one of three ways 1 they sheet the roof and cut it a desired over hand and hang a 2x4 from that and attach the facia to that with another 2x4 against the wall with soffet to hide the 2x4s. 2 A ladder is built out of two 2x4s and blocks which is attached the the wall before it is sheeted.
3 On an extended overhang 2x4s are let into the top of the gable and attached to the next rafter or truss and reaches out long enough to nail the outside 2x4 to and then facia.
It sounds like you have none of these methods, I have a few ideas and others will too but first. What kind of siding do you have? No soffet between facia and gable? Sheeting on roof, 3/4" board or ? Distance fron facia to gable? How old is the roof?


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## joecal (Jul 3, 2012)

Hi, except for the gable on the front of the house which has some horizontal strips of wood the rest of the house is stucco'd.  I have no soffits. The sheeting on the roof under the eaves appears to be a type of tongue and groove (I'd agree that it looks to be about 3/4's thick).  I did check and the fascia is not nailed into the ends of these boards but I did find that there are nails from the roof top of these tongue and groove boards down into the top edge of the fascia.  The distance from the fascia to gable varies.  For example, in the gable in the front of my house the distance from the fascia to the gable (where the roof starts sloping up) is about 13 inches and then as you go up to the apex of the roof the distance increases to 21 and 3/4 inches.  Thanks for your response, Joe


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## joecal (Jul 3, 2012)

Nealtw.  I'm not sure how old the roof is as I just purchased the home 6 months ago.  The shingles are in very good shape tho so I suspect the roof isn't that old.  I reread your post and it seems that on parts of my roof i have what you say it type #1 but it has no soffit.  It's only the gable roofs that have no extended rafter to nail to.  Surprised you can't see my photo.  I can see it when i open up this thread--possibly I didn't attach it correctly.  Thanks again, Joe


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## nealtw (Jul 3, 2012)

Just to replace this with something like what you have is best done when replacing the roof. 
My fear is how much this will sag when you remove the old facia. Perhaps you could look at just covering it with aluminium or vinyl.
I am getting your photo now, have you got vents stuck up against the roof like in that photo?


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## joecal (Jul 3, 2012)

Hello NealTW, two of my large gables have vents and two don't.  That's why I measured out and was thinking about having some wooden brackets made which I'll nail to the studs near the edge of the wall and just under the eaves so that I could nail the fascia to the bracket.  Of course when I replace the roof in the future I could put some nails down from the top as well.  I was just wondering if there were any other suggestions that I hadn't thought about.  Thanks for all you info, Joe


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## nealtw (Jul 3, 2012)

If you rip the old facia down, you will do some dammage to the deck boards and loosen some shingle nails too. 
The only thing that comes to mind is leaving the old one there and adding a wider board to that, sticking up above the roof. Then you would have to install  step flashing and a cap flashing. Unless the roofers here could suggest some kind of flashing to extend over an added fasia. 
Keep in mind that the angle cut and join at the peak and the knee brace are all that is holding this overhang from droping. I do not think removing the facia is a good idea.


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## joecal (Jul 3, 2012)

I just got done removing most of the horizontal fascia (which is attached to the rafters) and there was one little piece that they nailed the heck out of from above and it took me over two hours to remove it since there were so many nails into it from above.  It was only about two and a half feet long.  Each side of my gables is about 18 to 19 feet and I could only imagine how long that would take and also how much I could possibly damage the deck boards as you call them.  I like your idea and I'm gonna look into that.  I had no idea there was such a thing as step flashing and cap flashing.  Thanks for your time and suggestions.  Regards, Joe


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