Soffit and fascia painting in Cambridge
The fascia is the board along the eaves that the gutter is fixed to. The soffit is the panel underneath, closing the gap back to the wall. On gable ends, the sloping boards are bargeboards. Our decorators paint and stain all three when they are timber, along with exposed rafter ends on older houses.
Painting soffits and fascias is part of our wider exterior house painting service, but it is often booked on its own when the roofline is the only thing looking tired. If your fascias are uPVC, they need a different coating system, and that is covered under uPVC spraying.
What we look for up at the roofline
Fascia board painting starts with a close look, because most rooflines are only seen properly from a ladder. The commonest problem is rot at the ends of boards, at joints, and behind gutter brackets, where water sits and the paint was never reached. Graham will push a probe into anything that looks suspect.
Peeling on the underside of soffits often has a different cause: moisture coming up from inside the roof or damp walls, rather than rain from outside. Painting over it won't stop it, so the ventilation is worth checking.
Old roofline paint on houses built before the 1960s may contain lead. It should be tested before work starts, and if it is positive it must not be sanded dry. Wet abrading and careful collection of debris are the usual approach.
- Rot at board ends, joints and behind gutter brackets
- Gaps where birds or wasps get into the roof space
- Blocked or painted-over soffit vents
- Old coatings that may contain lead
- Gutters leaking onto the timber below
Paint or stain for the eaves
Many 1960s and 1970s houses were built with stained timber soffits and bargeboards, while older and newer houses tend to have them painted. Both work, and the choice usually comes down to the look of the house and what is on there already.
Moving from stain to paint is straightforward once the surface is cleaned, sanded and primed. Going the other way, from paint back to stain, means stripping the old paint off completely, which on a roofline is a lot of work for the result. Microporous exterior paints and stains both let timber breathe, which helps them stay put on boards that get very hot in summer sun.
Preparing and painting at height
Access is the biggest part of the job. A single-storey roofline can often be done from ladders. Two-storey houses, rooflines over conservatories and steep gables usually need a tower or scaffolding, and Graham will say which at the visit.
Loose paint is scraped and sanded back to sound timber. Bare wood and knots are primed, with Zinsser where resin or staining needs blocking. Small defects are filled, joints are sealed, then undercoat and top coats follow. Gutters are a decision to make in advance: working round the brackets is quicker, but unclipping a run gives access to the strip of fascia behind it.
Painting overhead means drips, so windows, sills, paths and cars below are sheeted. One customer in CB23 who had fascias, soffits and masonry painted wrote of Graham that "the quality of his work is excellent."
Birds, timing and when painting isn't enough
House martins and swifts nest under eaves, and it is an offence to damage or destroy the nest of a wild bird while it is being built or used. If birds are nesting, that stretch waits until they have gone, so roofline work is best planned with the season in mind.
When a fascia is rotten through, paint won't save it. Small areas can be cut out and repaired by our carpenter. Full lengths may need replacing. Plastic capping boards fitted over rotten timber hide the problem rather than fix it, so be wary of that as a quick answer. Any timber repairs and their cost appear in the quotation before work starts.
Pricing a roofline repaint
If your window frames need repainting too, doing both while the access is up usually makes sense.
- Length of the eaves and the number of gables
- Ladders, tower or scaffolding
- Rot repairs or replacement boards
- Whether gutters are unclipped or worked around
- Paint or stain, and any change of colour
- Lead testing and the precautions it calls for
Getting a quotation for your soffits and fascias
Get in touch by phone or WhatsApp. Graham will walk round, look up close where he can, and send a written quotation by email that separates the painting from any repairs. Roofline work tends to cluster in the drier months, so it helps to ask early. We paint rooflines from Waterbeach to Fulbourn. You only pay once you're happy with the finished roofline.
