What is aluminum soffit?

What is soffit       

Soffit is the term for a specific area of your home where the roof overhangs the wall is called the eve.  The underside of the eve is considered your soffit.  If you look underneath the overhang or eve of your home and you can see the rafters, big boards standing on their sides, you don’t have soffit. Soffit technically is the covering that encloses that area.  The reason builders and engineers have elected to enclose this area for well over a hundred or so years, is in consideration of numerous advantages and few disadvantages.  Here at Seamless Solutions we prefer to install a roll formed metal soffit paneling system referred to as Triple four Aluminum Soffit.  It is grooved to give the appearance of tongue and groove wood boards, or bead board.  Each section is 12 inches wide with the bead or grooves running 4 inches apart and perpendicular to the wall of your home.  The edge has a water tight interlocking seam formed into itself so one side slides lengthwise into the opposite side locking the two pieces together.  It is installed into a piece of metal bent into the shape of a J on the wall or sometimes the shape of a C which holds the piece either level or following the roof slope determined by customer choice.  The outer edge of the soffit interlocks and gets held in place by the aluminum fascia wrap which is bent to meet the soffit perfectly.  It can however be installed without metal fascia and held above the fascia with another piece of J or C channel metal.  This is the option most often used when installing aluminum soffit panels on a porch or patio ceiling.

Benefits of Aluminum Soffit

The simplest benefit to having aluminum soffit on your home is the advantage of a material that will not degrade regardless of the conditions outside.  Aluminum does not rust rot or dry out like wood.  Far too often we see drywall and wood paneling installed as soffit in the southwest.  This is a building practice that is never ever done anywhere else in the country.  Its assumed we can get away with it here due to the mild winters and low precipitation.  We do however have just as many pests if not more than elsewhere in the country.  Aluminum soffit panels are almost impervious to pests.  Squirrels, birds, woodpeckers, and the biggest problem in Arizona PACK RATS, almost always choose elsewhere to invade if you have aluminum soffit on your home.  The key factor to if they choose to go after it and try to  break in, is when we install it and they already have a nest somewhere inside your attic with babies inside it.  Our highly skilled craftsman who have ownership stake in Seamless Solutions, know exactly how to identify if you already have pests inside your attic/ home.  Because our workers aren’t hourly or commission based employees, they don’t hesitate to stop work to the benefit of your home.  As they are not trying to hustle through jobs to get their pay checks up higher, or make a minimum.  We believe in a performance and quality based approach, centered around the most important thing there is HONESTY. 

Insurance and Environment

The same exact insurance and environmental considerations apply to Aluminum Soffit on your home.  This is the same exact area of your home that is susceptible to fire in the event of wildfire, or even an accident with outdoor heaters, firepits, and cooking equipment.  Heat rises and the fact being your roof is sloped downward and it actually creates a heat trap in between the wall and the roof.  In my honest opinion this is a terrible area of a home to have any combustible materials.  Also yes wood is combustible, it does not need an open flame to ignite quite the contrary! When wood is heated or even burning in a fireplace, it is not the wood itself that is burning, it is the gasses coming off the wood from being heated that burn.  Aluminum Soffit creates a critical shell and air gap between any combustibles and heaven forbid high heat or fire.  The same environmental considerations apply to soffit as to fascia wrap.  Any other material you install on your eve needs to be painted sealed caulked multiple times over the life of your home, aluminum soffit does not.  Call the experts at Seamless Solutions today to go over more pros and cons, and design your aluminum soffit installation or exterior ceiling application.