Water Damage: Wood Trim Below Roof (Part 1)

Most homeowners paint their home’s exterior on a regular basis, but wait until the entire house shows signs of needing to be painted. Unfortunately one or 2 sides of a house (usually the south side, and those that can’t dry easily due to shrubs or trees) suffer more weather related damage. For many houses, painting should be done on a rotating schedule:

• Every year - vulnerable trim like window sills and kick plates under doors should be scraped and painted.
• Midway through your painting cycle - the most vulnerable side of a home should be painted, i.e. every 3 years, where the rest of the house gets painted every 6 years. This is also a good time to review all trim and paint as needed, i.e. corner boards and trim under the roof.
• Whole house painting should be done when more than a few cracks start to show, typically every 4 to 8 years depending on the age of the house and local weather conditions (and these are changing dramatically so keep an eye on your home’s exterior).

Any time you see cracks or other surface problems, this means your home is vulnerable to water damage beneath the paint surface which may not be visible. It is a challenge telling homeowners that paint isn’t about being pretty, paint is meant to protect your home’s exterior wood from the elements.

Water Damage Before & After Photos (1st in Series)

This series of articles is meant to alert  homeowners that they should inspect, find and correct problems every year to minimize damage and repair costs. We’ll share BEFORE and AFTER photos of common repairs done by My Handyman, covering the most common exterior wood rot problems.

Here we are repairing the soffit, a term which refers to the flat (horizontal) trim underneath the roof. Click here for a diagram illustrating roof terminology. The trick I use to remember soffit versus fascia, is when I’m looking at the roof line, my face is staring at the fascia.

Here we needed to remove rotted wood and replace it because of extensive damage. If you make repairs quickly, sometimes you can clean out small amounts of rot and fill with bondo. Bondo is a two-part putty, manufactured by 3M but it commonly refers to all auto-repair putties or so-called plastic body fillers. When mixed with a hardener or catalyst, Bondo turns into a putty which sets and becomes rock-hard. You apply it, sand to achieve the shape you want, prime and paint.

Where possible we try to replace an entire piece of wood to avoid creating more seams. When this isn’t possible, we caulk the seams to reduce future water penetration. Here we had to paint the repaired area, and reattach the flood lights.

Soffit BEFORE Repairs

Soffit AFTER Wood Replaced

With just this one example of water damage that likely occurred over 10/more years, we hope you’ll take time to inspect your home each spring and make the necessary repairs. We will also be adding additional mini articles here to help you learn about the most common types of water damage.