Soffit work - or, why I've been having to see a chiropractor.

In an earlier post, I briefly discussed some of the work I had begun on the exterior soffit. I will now elaborate on that work "below the fold".

A section of completed soffit over the main entry. I did the soffit in two different ways - most of the perimeter of the roof has a "boxed-in" soffit (where the soffit meets the wall in perpendicular fashion), while over the main entry I opted to follow the rafter tails up from the eaves.

Reflektor - Arcade Fire

Before I begin describing how I built the soffit, I should say that the soffit material we decided to use  is a tongue and groove 1x6 pine that I got at a local mill. A more common approach to soffit material these days is to use perforated aluminum panels with associated bits of trim. With a somewhat wider than usual roof overhang, Jess and I didn't relish the idea of looking out our windows at such a mundane material type. Comparing material costs, the pine was actually slightly cheaper than the aluminum but is more laborious to install. We decided to install the pine unstained and unpainted, the reason being that it isn't really exposed to the elements and also thinking that it would look nice as it changed colour over time (the almost white colour of the pine will darken a little before eventually fading to a dull grey which should match the colour of the galvanized roof nicely).

"Boxing-in" the soffit:

Where the soffit is boxed-in, a certain amount of rough carpentry was required to build a frame to support the soffit material. A 2x3 ledger was face nailed to the wall opposite and level with the ends of the rafter tails. The rafter tails were then connected to the ledger using short pieces of 2x3 - face nailed to one side of each rafter tail and toe nailed to the ledger. With this frame in place, I face nailed (by hand) the t&g pine boards using 2 1/4""dome-head" galvanized siding nails. Dome head nails are ideal for this purpose - the dome head allows the nail head to stand proud of the wood  so that the hammer face doesn't damage the planed finish of the plank. Aesthetically speaking, the dome head nails are also rather nice since they appear like little grey buttons against the lighter colour of the wood.

Where the soffit is boxed-in, it is also vented. Attic vents are built into this soffit type by leaving a wide gap between the t&g planks using insect screen as a backing for the gap. This gap is then reduced by nailing in pine 1x2s up the center.

Box soffit under construction. Before starting, I spent some time figuring out where I wanted the vent located. The basic idea was to imagine roughly how far from the eave I wanted the vent, then let the full width pine boards dictate the exact location. To put the vent where you see it now, I went three boards out from the wall, and one board in from the eave. The resulting large gap was finished by ripping full width boards in half and installing the pieces at either side of the gap. Be sure to staple up some kind of bug screen or hardware cloth before nailing up your pine.

The wide vent gap was reduced further by nailing a 1x2 strip up the middle. Final trim for this soffit includes pine quarter round along the perimeter at the eave (against the back of the fascia) and at the wall (against the siding). Diagonal pine 1x4s cover the 45 degree seam at each corner.

Following the rafter tails:

The main reason I decided to follow the rafter tails over the main entry with my soffit material was to leave exposed the large rough-sawn beams that hold the roof up there. Following the rafter tails was pretty straight forward; simply nailing the t&g boards to what is already there - the most challenging aspect being a few tricky bevel cuts where the rafter tails change direction. I decided to leave this section of soffit unvented for aesthetic reasons.

Following the rafter tails leaves those big rough-sawn beams fully exposed - I think they look real perdy and didn't want them covered up. In the lower left of this photo, you can see that I nailed in some 2x3 studs over the ledge at the top of the wall so that I'd have something to nail siding to.

The completed soffit which I think looks quite nice. Final trim will include pine quarter round and 1x4 trim in the same manner as previously described.

More attic access:

At some point I may have mentioned (or the reader may have noticed) that I built "hay loft" style attic access doors into each of the gable ends which have been very useful for getting out onto the roof from inside the attic. These access doors have proven less convenient as a means of accessing the attic once it is closed in, since doing so requires that you first climb onto the roof using a ladder then climb up the roof using another ladder to reach the door. Realizing this prompted me to build in another attic access door between the trusses over the main entry which will be much easier to access using a single ladder.

A door that opens upward was built into the trusses over main entry. A single dead bolt latch secures the door from the outside making getting into the attic much easier than via climbing up the roof. Having this access door outside has the advantage of avoiding the installation of an access door on the inside, which would be difficult to air seal tightly and would be an energy and durability liability. This access door was finished with pine just like the soffit and its perimeter will be trimmed with pine 1x4s.