On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:22:02 GMT, Dave Solly
scribbled this interesting note:

I need to replace the facia all around the house. It is presently a pressed
"paper" product that is falling apart.

My first thought was wood, but would a cememt board product such as Hardie
(SP), or a plastic type product be better? How about hanging gutters on a
cement or plastic product? Any problems there?

What you have is MDF facia. I call it cardboard.

You have several options ranging from pine to composite. Redwood is
always a good option but it splits easily when installing and is
expensive. Personally, if I were doing this job on my house I'd use
one of the composite materials such as Hardie.

As for gutters, the weight of the gutter should never simply be
attached to the facia, rather it sould be attached to what is behind
the facia. If your house has a 2X4 band across the rafter tails then
installing gutters is simple since no matter where you fasten you have
a solid substrait. If not, then gutter fasteners should be installed
directly into the rafter tails.

One of the things we do when doing a complete tear off and deck job is
make certain gutter fasteners are installed into the rafter tails.
This is one of the minor items that most clients have no idea we do.
Just something that ought to be taken care of and is easy to do while
we are there. Having the roof entirely off makes it easy to locate the
rafter tails and get the gutter fasteners perfectly installed.
Similarly in your project, while you have the facia off, take note of
the location of all rafter tails (mark the new facia somehow) so you
will know where they are.

Good luck.


--
John Willis
(Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)