fascia repair/replacment

Hi All,
Earlier this year we moved into a long rectangular fifties brick veneer with gable ends along the short sides. Most of the fascia on the non-gable sides of the house seems quite sound but we have problems at the corners and at the gables.
The guttering along the long sides of the house doesn't finish when it gets to the gable end but turns the corner and continues for a couple of feet at each end of the gable (let's call it the "return"). The oregon fascia board which follows the roof lines along the north-west gable has rotted quite badly in places (ie you can poke a pencil all the way through) - especially at the ends where it comes down to meet the (equally rotten) fascia behind the guttering return.
What's the best thing to replace it with? I wouldn't have thought oregon would have been the most durable timber (although fifty years ain't bad!). Blokes at work have suggested that treated pine is the go nowadays but others say that this tends to warp terribly.
Any suggestions/advice would be much appreciated.

Hi folks,
As soon as I posted the original Q, I found very similar under General Woodworking Forum.
Consensus was - keep looking after it - whatever the timber - but with differing views as to the suitability of treated pine.

However, I don't want to keep visiting these gable fascia every couple of years 'cos these gables are pretty high. The block slopes and the south east gable is SO high (2 storeys at THAT end) I haven't even been game to get up there and get close and personal enough to check IT'S condition). I reckon I'll need to hire and get scaffolding erected so I don't kill me self on this job but I've heard scarey stories about how much scaffolding hire and erection costs. So I'd like to do this fascia job properly first time.

Can anyone out there give me some approximate idea of the scaffolding costs? Are we talking many hundreds? some thousands? many thousands?

PS Is it true the "timber ain't what it used to be"? ie that the way timber is produced nowadays produces poorer quality stuff which rots faster or is that just "good ole days" talk?

Gday joniere, & welcome :)

T/Pine seems to be the go for fascia these days, primed & painted.

Maybe look at hiring one of those "cherry picker on a small trailer" jobbies, could be the go.


Cheers....................Sean

A visit to your local hire centre (in off-peak time) and they should show you what you require, however if you are not good at heights it may pay to hire someone to do it for you.

Its easier to pay someone rather then end up in a wheel chair.

I am in the same position as you and have found that 16mm ply appears to work well to repair what I believe was oregeon.
On mine the corners are the part that has failed, I have repaired a couple of corners and still have a number to do

the boat repair places have thin epoxy to repair wood rot without replacement which appears to be ok for small areas, not used as yet.
the ones I have done have been done with replacement so far.
then filled with builders bog and sanded and painted

I have used penetrol as a first coat for the painting as I am not sanding the fibro parts

Hope this helps

Doug

I am in the same position as you and have found that 16mm ply appears to work well to repair what I believe was oregeon.
On mine the corners are the part that has failed, I have repaired a couple of corners and still have a number to do

the boat repair places have thin epoxy to repair wood rot without replacement which appears to be ok for small areas, not used as yet.
the ones I have done have been done with replacement so far.
then filled with builders bog and sanded and painted

I have used penetrol as a first coat for the painting as I am not sanding the fibro parts

Hope this helps

Doug

I would also check into whether you can hire something rather than scaffolding. I have scaffolding around my renovation which is 3 sides, 8mtrs wide X 7.5mtrs (60sq mt floor space) so which had to be errected for the 2nd story part not the bottom and there is the cost to hire, the cost for the scaffolder to errect it, if you need to have it lifted at any time, there will be a cost for that and also a cost to pull it down and remove it. Depends on how big an area, how much scaffolding, how long etc..Friends of mine owner built a single story house and they payed $500 a week, for the hire of the scaffolding, but that was single..And I am fairly sure they also payed for the scaffolders fees on top of that (not 100% sure, but I used the same company as them and I had to)..

The scaffolding I was referring to Mahaylea was the box section Mini-scaff that will reach 2 storeys.