Winter DIY ~ Rebuilding the Back Patio Soffit & Fascia with Cement Board

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This DIY trim & fascia project has been a long time coming, folks! Ever since we moved into this home, Mr. Ethereal and I knew the fascia boards and much of the trim surrounding the eaves of our house needed to be replaced. This house is roughly 35 years old and squirrels, rats and mice have chewed on the boards for moisture during super hot summers. They have also have chewed their way into our attic…

This is a long post, friends, so grab a nice warm beverage and come visit for a while!

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Begin with a plan

So, while my husband (Mr. Ethereal) has been home, he decided to start this monster project of repairing all of the fascia boards and trim while he had a lot of downtime. He took measurements of the soffit area underneath our backyard patio cover and the adjacent fascia board areas for this first part of this rebuild.

We began with a trip to Lowe’s but also shopped Home Depot as we needed supplies. Hubby had already figured out how many full sheets of Hardie board he would need for the soffit in total length (three!, with pieces leftover for other parts of this big project).

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Mr. Ethereal began with the ceiling soffit and trim pieces out along our back patio. This area had the most damage compared to the rest of the house’s fascia trim. He was pretty sure this was how the mice and rats have been getting inside our attic, too, over these past five years.

He began with removing all of the trim and overhead boards which were made of compressed wood and/or wood plywood. He saved these pieces to use as templates for cutting the new Hardie board, and marked each one, recording their size, width and length.

Take care when removing the trim under the roof metal trim so as not to damage that metal flashing. Otherwise, you’ll be replacing that, too. 😉 Mr. Ethereal found that he could gently pull the metal flashing outward while shimmying the old board out and pushing the new board into place, then screwing through precut holes. Long nails originally held everything in place but he used long screws with the rebuild.

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Hardie Board

We decided to replace everything with cement board as it is fire resistant and animals won’t chew it because of the fine sharp particles within the board itself. Since North Texas is very humid in the summertime, dry rot is also a problem.

We thought that this might be a better solution to the plywood and pressboard which were currently up there. It comes with a finished side and in several widths. You may find that you have to build up some areas for thickness with an underlayer, as we did on our chimney rebuild (upcoming post).

Pricing out individual pieces of Hardie board, getting the right saw and grinder blades to cut cement, and then we began this project right before Thanksgiving 2024. The Hardie brand of cement board is available at our local big box stores so that is what we used.

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Tearing down damaged boards

Wear a respirator or a specialized mask with a separate insert when pulling down boards which might have rodent droppings on them. Hantavirus is not prevalent here in North Texas but these dropping really affect people with asthma (like me).

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Charles took great care to vacuum up any rat or mice droppings so I wouldn’t be affected. You can see the strap on the back of his neck as he wears his special mask.

While he worked up on the ladders, I was on the ground painting all of the trim pieces and frresh-cut ends for this rebuild.

Rodent Proofing

Seal up entryways used by rodents with 1/4″ hardware cloth. We purchased rolls which are 3′ wide x 10′ long. You can cut odd-shaped pieces to fit each space you are reinforcing as needed.

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Charles measured spaces for hardware cloth, plus an extra 1-2″ around each edg,e for stapling the piece in place while I stayed on the ground. I cut out hardware cloth pieces and he stapled each one in place.

Be careful, and don’t work too late into the evening

Now for the Eeeeewwwwww part…

For those who are squeamish: Scroll down to “Getting back to the project”.

Funny aside: I did take over for a short time stapling as my husband was just too tired to finish a last corner area on this particular evening. I was worried about rats getting into this open space as it was the very last area which needed buttoning up. He just had no energy left as he had started at 7:30am and it was now almost 9:00pm.

We began this project the weekend before Thanksgiving when I was off from school.

Because this new stapler works opposite from the pneumatic stapler I am used to… I accidentally shot a 1/2″ staple into my right hand when I pulled the trigger.

You might think why did I photographed this? Well, because that’s what photographers do, right?! Also because this was so weird that I wanted proof that stupid things do happen.

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Then I thought, “How the heck am I going to get this staple out of my hand?”

I was already on antibiotics for an issue with my left thumb (leftover from when I fell and cut my head open on Election Night; I tripped on a raised piece of sidewalk).

I tested all of my tendons by moving them and they all functioned, so all is good. 🙂 Just soft tissue damage though I do think I shot one side of the staple through the long flexor tendon of my ring finger. My Athletic Trainer classes came in handy for testing my hand. 😉

Anyway, I found out that a metal paint can opener is the perfect width for pulling staples out of your hand! LOL!

I went inside, cleaned my hand really well, tried to make the punctures bleed, poured rubbing alcohol on it, stuck a Band-Aid on it coated with Neosporin before putting my work glove back on, then went back outside to finish stapling this area.

I did come inside afterwards and iced my hand really well. 🙂

***January 2025 ~ As we finish this build, both hands are okay now and so was my head after a week recovering from a mild concussion and three stitches. November 2024 wasn’t the kindest of months for me. 😉

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Getting back to the project

We found out last summer that using an angle grinder works really well for cutting hardware cloth. I am not the best at making the cuts look pretty, but the job gets done. 😉

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This is how the right side of the soffit looked once the hardware cloth was staped up. Mr. Ethereal sprayed animal deterrent foam around this area once he had all the pieces installed along the eaves.

We had never heard of this product before but if it works, all the better!

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The next morning, here is the open soffit with all the gaps into the attic protected from critters. Charles used a piece of an old board to “test fit” an idea he had for rebuilding with the cement board.

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Rebuilding with Hardie cement board

To cut cement board, you need specialized blades meant to cut cement, and they can be difficult to find at the big box stores. Mr. Ethereal had to order some blades online and Amazon was able to ship them overnight.

Hardie, Diablo and Bauer manufacture these blades but each fits their own tools. Some blades have 1/2″ openings, some have 3/4″ diameter openings for where you tighten the blade onto the saw or grinder. One has to really read the blades specifications as you go to buy them plus also look at the shape of the opening.

Blades have three measurements written somewhere on them and sometimes they are separated by “forward slant” signs. These measurements refer to: the blade size/the opening width for attachment/and the blade cutting width (not necessarily in that order).

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The biggest issue my husband had with putting up the cement board into the soffit is that the product is heavy. Eight foot sections at 20″ wide weighed a small ton when trying to lift in place over one’s head.

Pro tip: Drill all holes for screws through cement board while on the ground. If you are countersinking your screw heads, do that also while on the ground. It’s just too difficult while up in the air, especially without help.

Mr. Ethereal came up with a series of “lifts” using two ladders combined with various pieces of leftover 2×4’s and small pieces of trim to use as shims. Here Charles is installing the first outer fascia board underneath the metal roof trim.

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After hanging the outer trim, he added the soffit pieces. He hung (2) eight-foot sections pushed firmly into the triangles created by the corner eaves, then the added the final middle piece.

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All that needs to be completed now are a couple of finishing pieces to cover seams and a couple of small pieces to complete the inside soffit eave corners.

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Moving onto the skirting trim

Charles actually began with this right-hand section first then progressed to the undereave soffit area. He used this time to noodle how he was going to tackle the soffit. You may wish to take this approach, too.

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This photograph shares some of Mr. Ethereal’s measurments for new trim pieces. As you can see, the metal flashing has a gap where an outer piece of board would slide underneath.

The original builders built up this area with a layer of 2×4’s, then 5/8″ plywood, followed by a final layer of 5/8″ finished trim.

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I missed capturing the removal of the outer dry rotted fascia trim as he worked on this during the day while I was at school. He replaced some of the underlying 2×4’s with new pieces cut from leftover 2×4’s we had from our shed loft storage project (never shared, but I will in a future post).

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He is measuring for the final Hardie board trim piece and/or adding caulking. Buy caulk rated for outdoors which has good ability to expand/contract with the weather. It’ll save you having to redo this step in the near future.

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Adding the finished skirting trim ~ already predrilled with screws partially screwed into the cement board for ease of drilling in-place. Charles used clamps, too, as needed to hold boards for a “second hand.”

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And that is it for now! This photograph shows the metal flashing which still needs to be screwed down. The gutters need to be reinstalled and the drain spouts reattached.

Mr. Ethereal finished this up after he replaced the dry-rotted 2×4 (left, along the soffit area) and added the new trim pieces there.

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Here in this final photograph, you can see the soffit and its outer trim boards plus the right side fascia trim completed. The gutters have been reinstalled and now it’s time to move onto the next area to repair.

Thanks for sharing in the DIY back patio repair journey. Please leave us a comment and let us know what home repair issues you’ve tackled lately.

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Keep on DIYing,