Charlie: Allen in Spring has written to us. He says I’m gonna replace some dry rotted fascia boards and these’ll support Hardie soffit using half inch slot on the fascia for the soffit edge to guide into and the builder though, when they put the house up, used untreated wood probably pine so the guy over at the home improvement center recommends using treated one by six, do you think this is a good idea and can I prime and paint as purchased or do I just let it dry out like, without any treatment on it?
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Tom: Well first off if you’re getting a slotted fascia you buy a slotted fascia. It’s actually made with a slot in there so that’s what you would do is go buy that. It’s not gonna be pressure treated and no a pressure treated fascia board really looks terrible because it’ll curl, it’ll crack. It doesn’t hold up well. It’s not a cosmetically pleasing to look at board. Now I would of course use Hardie if I could for the fascia just use hardie but if you’re just replacing a few pieces and you want it to match, go get the slotted fascia at a lumber yard and not a box store and they will know exactly what you’re talking about. In my old days what we used to do is use degrade pine. It’s a pine that’s used for shelving. It has no knots. It’s real true. It’s better than just your regular pine that you would get with the knots in it and things like that. Paints up really well and you just paint the backside, paint the whole thing then put it up and then give it a final coat of paint once it’s all in place. It’ll last a long time if you have the proper detail on your home. But pressure treated lumber is not used for fascia boards.
Charlie: So you said obviates whether or not he needs to paint it.
Tom: Well you got to paint it.
Charlie: Yeah but I’m just saying he thinks pressure treated wood on the side of the house is gonna look good enough.
Tom: No.
Charlie: I’m thinking no.
Tom: Look like a fence. That’s not good.
Charlie: I’m thinking you get to know your HOA people.
Tom: I don’t know … Oh those guys oh yeah.