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At Family Roofing, we take great pride in our experience, expertise, quality and customer service. It is our mission to provide excellent workmanship and complete customer satisfaction from start to completion of a project. Our reputation is based on service, safety and quality, regardless of how large or small the job.

 

What Is Soffit and Why Is It Important to a House?

 

Where is soffit?

Soffit is the material between the roof’s eaves where the fascia and gutters are placed to the wall.  Roofs that do not have overhangs do not have soffits.  There’s a good chance your building has soffit installed. Just walk outside your door and look up at the roof. The material connecting the roof overhang and the side of your building?  That’s soffit.

The word “soffit” is derived from the French language, and literally means “something fixed underneath.”   It’s most commonly used around a building’s main roof, but soffit can also be used under porches or under arches or columns.  It is commonly made in aluminum and vinyl, as well as fiber cement, wood, and steel.

 

 

Soffit serves both an aesthetic and functional purpose for a building’s roofing system.  It’s the skin that covers your eaves — without it, you would see your rafter beams fully exposed.  Cover it up with soffit, in the style and color that you like, and you add some instant and easy character to your building.

Functionally speaking, soffit protects your rafters from the weather elements.  If your rafters are exposed in any areas, you’ll likely have mold buildup and rotting beams to replace — which definitely won’t make for a fun (or cheap) Spring.  Plus, mold in a home is never healthy.

Why does my home need soffit?

Soffit acts as a passive ventilation unit for your attic.  It keeps warm moisture in the air from entering the attic air and condensing and creating mold.  Before soffit became a popular method of circulating air though a roof area, homes used gable vents or a hood vent to create air flow.  The problem is they didn’t circulate all the air, just the air in specific locations and mold would grow in the insulation where it didn’t circulate.

Soffit outlining the roofline allows for continuous ventilation and is one of the most effective ways to ventilate into the attic.  Air from the soffit cycles to the vents to draw heat and moisture away from the house. Moisture is mold’s breading ground and the cause of roof rot and poor air quality.

Also, soffit helps your building breathe.  With vented soffit, air can flow through the vents to provide regular air circulation to your attic.  Air flow is tremendously important for your entire home.  If you have lanced style vents, you can achieve proper air flow while limiting the moisture that can enter through the vents.

If solid soffit is more of your style, no problem — just make sure you have vents installed to enable proper air circulation through the attic.  Or, for every few soffits you install, you could install a vented panel to assure air flow.

Imagine if your eaves were sealed tight instead.  In the hot summer months, your attic would draw in (and hold) heat.  That sweat running off your head?  It would definitely be from your attic overheating, but also likely from looking at your high utility bill as well.

In the winter months, snow and rain would ultimately lead to moisture buildup, and you would eventually have rotting and/or mold in your rafters and sheathing.

Bottom line  — you need to let your attic cycle the heat and moisture away from your house.  Soffit is the most common and easy way to protect your roof frame and achieve air circulation to keep your building healthy.

If you’re not a candidate for soffit for a given reason — say your building does not have eaves — Ask a builder to look at your attic and offer custom suggestions to improve your air circulation.