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When replacing roof fascia boards, is it common or required to re-nail the roof decking into the new fascia? My contractor says this is not necessary because the decking is nailed to the rafters about 6" in from the edge, but after he did this job I'm seeing several gaps between the roof decking and the fascia. These gaps are mostly about 1/4" but up to 5/8" in some places. I'm concerned about water coming in during high winds, or the wind picking up the edge of the roof. My roof is made of roll roofing with metal drip edge. So I see three options:

  1. Leave the gaps with no nails.
  2. Peel up the roofing, nail it down, and re-torch.
  3. Nail through the roofing and dab with caulk. I would be concerned about water leaking around the nails.

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Elliott B
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1 Answers1

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Roof sheathing is not normally nailed to finish fascia to begin with*. This is because the fascia isn't always up tight to the sheathing**, and nailing it down would create dips. This is especially true when replacing legacy lumber with modern, nominally-sized boards, which tend to be smaller.

Depending on how the sheathing was installed (with enough fascia lap or not), it could be nailed to subfascia (the framing behind the finish fascia) without issue.

But, in general, no. The drip edge should adequately handle water drainage in conditions short of a hurricane. A seal between wood components isn't critical.

* It was sometimes done way back, when all roofs were hand-framed and often had open soffits. It's not common anymore.

** Wood being wood, and humans being humans, there's always some variation in the height from the bottom of the fascia (or soffit) and the top of the rafters. This is normalized at the bottom of the fascia, where a consistent margin below the soffit is established, leaving some variation between the top of the fascia and the top of the rafters. This is normal and almost unavoidable.

isherwood
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