Hi all,
As I detailed in an earlier post, I'm in the middle of a gutter replacement project on an old home in which I'm replacing warped old copper K gutters with new copper half round. This has also evolved into a fascia-replacement project, as I've found there to be an unacceptable amount of rotted wood hidden behind all of the aluminum fascia wrap. I've been replacing it with painted cedar. As I've been doing so, I've found that most of the rafter tails have been in pretty good shape, and any that have rotted I've been able to fix with Abatron's fabulous LiquidWood + WoodEpox. This has always given me plenty of "new" meat to nail new fascia into.
I ran into an unexpected problem when I pulled off the porch fascia - it appears that when the house was built (Early 50s), for whatever reason the rafter tails were not properly notched, leaving VERY little meat into which the fascia could be nailed. Here are a few photos:
![Image]()
![Image]()
![Image]()
As you can see, the tails were not notched to fit over the face of the porch's main support beam, and the horizontal cut leaves very little exposed tail. The builder appears to have nailed 2x4 scraps to the bottom of the rafter tails to lower the soffit so that it aligns with the lower fascia. Some of this has rotted out (along with the soffit itself, which will have to be replaced).
![Image]()
I've never seen this. Has anyone else?
The simplest thing to do would be to just repair or replace anything that's rotted and slap on a new fascia board in the same manner as the old, but I hesitate to do this for two reasons:
1) I don't like the idea of fascia (and, by extension, heavy copper gutters) relying on two nails so close to each other in such a small area of rafter tail (I'd much rather space two nails vertically a few inches apart like you'd normally do)
2) The new half round gutters I'm using have different mounting considerations than the old K gutters. Let me explain more about (2):
The new gutters use a thick cast brass hanger that relies on two #12 x 1-11/16" stainless screws. As I detailed in a thread I made earlier, I think 3/4" thick fascia is too thin to support this. I solved this problem on one area of the house by using 5/4 (nominal, so 1" thick) cedar. I think this is just thick enough to be acceptable. Here's what that looks like:
![Image]()
Normally, I would just repeat this solution (using 5/4x instead of 1x) for the porch fascia, but the roof line here is a bit too close to the fascia. That is, the edge of the slate is only about 1-1/2" proud of 3/4" thick fascia, which is closer than at any other part of the house.
![Image]()
The new cast brass hanger pushes the back of the new half round gutter 1/4" away from the fascia, and with no drip edge and the capillary effect to contend with, slow water would just barely trickle behind the gutter according to a hose experiment I did. Long story short: I pretty much have to use 1x (3/4" actual) lumber for the fascia here in order for all of the water to be collected at all levels of rainfall.
This led me to thinking that the hangers (which will be spaced 24" apart) can be drilled into one out of every three rafter tails (which are spaced 16" on center), which might compensate for two out of every three only being drilled into 3/4" wood. The problem here is that since the rafter tails are so narrow, some of the hangers might fall in line with the 2x blocks in the pictures and not the rafter tails themselves, or even screw into the seam between them.
I'd love to hear some creative advice here. I've been spitballing a few ideas and would love some feedback.
Idea #1a: Block the rafter tails
The idea here would be to fit a 2x4 in between each rafter tail and secure each end with something like a pair of Kreg Blue Kote outdoor pocket hole screws, leaving the face of the 2x4 flush with the rafter tails. Something like this:
![Image]()
This would provide many of the benefits of a sub fascia, giving plenty of meat to nail in a 3/4" fascia board anywhere I want, and giving me the ability to screw in the gutter hangers wherever it's most aesthetically pleasing.
Idea #1b: Block the rafter tails (alternate)
Same as above, but instead of relying on pocket holes in the flimsy bottom blocks, I make a mechanical connection to the top of the porch's main support beam by affixing a single "fake rafter tail", or two of them, made out of 2x lumber through a pair of pocket holes. I did this twice before over the breezeway, where I wanted another block of wood to nail fascia into. Here's what I mean:
![Image]()
The idea would be to screw in one:
![Image]()
.. or two "fake rafter tails"
![Image]()
and nail the 2x4 block to them, and also affix the top two corners to the real rafter tails.
Idea #2: Cut the rafter tails and install sub fascia
This seems a bit more radical. This is obviously typically done before the roof is installed during construction, but is there any way to retroactively cut off 1.5" square and affix a 2x sub fascia? The roof is slate, so lifting up a bottom row is not feasible. Has this been done before?
Idea #3: Sister each rafter tail and cut it square and at full width
This appears to be a more conventional approach, but it comes with a significant drawback for my project - It would eliminate my ability to place the gutter hangers wherever it's most aesthetically pleasing/symmetrical. I would be tied into the "drill into one out of every three rafter tail" setup, where two out of three hangers only affix to 3/4" of "meat". Also, the roof of the porch is enclosed, so it would be somewhat difficult to sister the tails far up enough to be structurally sound.
That's where I am at this point, scratching my head and sleeping on it. Can any of the pros comment on my hair-brained ideas, and possibly offer alternate solutions?
Thank you all so much in advance!
As I detailed in an earlier post, I'm in the middle of a gutter replacement project on an old home in which I'm replacing warped old copper K gutters with new copper half round. This has also evolved into a fascia-replacement project, as I've found there to be an unacceptable amount of rotted wood hidden behind all of the aluminum fascia wrap. I've been replacing it with painted cedar. As I've been doing so, I've found that most of the rafter tails have been in pretty good shape, and any that have rotted I've been able to fix with Abatron's fabulous LiquidWood + WoodEpox. This has always given me plenty of "new" meat to nail new fascia into.
I ran into an unexpected problem when I pulled off the porch fascia - it appears that when the house was built (Early 50s), for whatever reason the rafter tails were not properly notched, leaving VERY little meat into which the fascia could be nailed. Here are a few photos:
As you can see, the tails were not notched to fit over the face of the porch's main support beam, and the horizontal cut leaves very little exposed tail. The builder appears to have nailed 2x4 scraps to the bottom of the rafter tails to lower the soffit so that it aligns with the lower fascia. Some of this has rotted out (along with the soffit itself, which will have to be replaced).
I've never seen this. Has anyone else?
The simplest thing to do would be to just repair or replace anything that's rotted and slap on a new fascia board in the same manner as the old, but I hesitate to do this for two reasons:
1) I don't like the idea of fascia (and, by extension, heavy copper gutters) relying on two nails so close to each other in such a small area of rafter tail (I'd much rather space two nails vertically a few inches apart like you'd normally do)
2) The new half round gutters I'm using have different mounting considerations than the old K gutters. Let me explain more about (2):
The new gutters use a thick cast brass hanger that relies on two #12 x 1-11/16" stainless screws. As I detailed in a thread I made earlier, I think 3/4" thick fascia is too thin to support this. I solved this problem on one area of the house by using 5/4 (nominal, so 1" thick) cedar. I think this is just thick enough to be acceptable. Here's what that looks like:
Normally, I would just repeat this solution (using 5/4x instead of 1x) for the porch fascia, but the roof line here is a bit too close to the fascia. That is, the edge of the slate is only about 1-1/2" proud of 3/4" thick fascia, which is closer than at any other part of the house.
The new cast brass hanger pushes the back of the new half round gutter 1/4" away from the fascia, and with no drip edge and the capillary effect to contend with, slow water would just barely trickle behind the gutter according to a hose experiment I did. Long story short: I pretty much have to use 1x (3/4" actual) lumber for the fascia here in order for all of the water to be collected at all levels of rainfall.
This led me to thinking that the hangers (which will be spaced 24" apart) can be drilled into one out of every three rafter tails (which are spaced 16" on center), which might compensate for two out of every three only being drilled into 3/4" wood. The problem here is that since the rafter tails are so narrow, some of the hangers might fall in line with the 2x blocks in the pictures and not the rafter tails themselves, or even screw into the seam between them.
I'd love to hear some creative advice here. I've been spitballing a few ideas and would love some feedback.
Idea #1a: Block the rafter tails
The idea here would be to fit a 2x4 in between each rafter tail and secure each end with something like a pair of Kreg Blue Kote outdoor pocket hole screws, leaving the face of the 2x4 flush with the rafter tails. Something like this:
This would provide many of the benefits of a sub fascia, giving plenty of meat to nail in a 3/4" fascia board anywhere I want, and giving me the ability to screw in the gutter hangers wherever it's most aesthetically pleasing.
Idea #1b: Block the rafter tails (alternate)
Same as above, but instead of relying on pocket holes in the flimsy bottom blocks, I make a mechanical connection to the top of the porch's main support beam by affixing a single "fake rafter tail", or two of them, made out of 2x lumber through a pair of pocket holes. I did this twice before over the breezeway, where I wanted another block of wood to nail fascia into. Here's what I mean:
The idea would be to screw in one:
.. or two "fake rafter tails"
and nail the 2x4 block to them, and also affix the top two corners to the real rafter tails.
Idea #2: Cut the rafter tails and install sub fascia
This seems a bit more radical. This is obviously typically done before the roof is installed during construction, but is there any way to retroactively cut off 1.5" square and affix a 2x sub fascia? The roof is slate, so lifting up a bottom row is not feasible. Has this been done before?
Idea #3: Sister each rafter tail and cut it square and at full width
This appears to be a more conventional approach, but it comes with a significant drawback for my project - It would eliminate my ability to place the gutter hangers wherever it's most aesthetically pleasing/symmetrical. I would be tied into the "drill into one out of every three rafter tail" setup, where two out of three hangers only affix to 3/4" of "meat". Also, the roof of the porch is enclosed, so it would be somewhat difficult to sister the tails far up enough to be structurally sound.
That's where I am at this point, scratching my head and sleeping on it. Can any of the pros comment on my hair-brained ideas, and possibly offer alternate solutions?
Thank you all so much in advance!
