The fascia is the board that runs along the edge of your roof and faces the street. The soffit is the panel underneath it, the part you see when you stand at the wall and look straight up. Together they close off the edge of the roof. When they rot, the damage is almost never where it started — water got in somewhere above, ran down inside the edge of the roof, and soaked the wood from behind.

Frontline Roofing repairs and replaces rotted soffit and fascia in McAllen, Mission, Edinburg and across the Rio Grande Valley. Call (956) 586-5711 or book a free roof inspection and we will tell you how far the rot actually goes.

Why soffit and fascia rot in the Rio Grande Valley

Four causes account for nearly everything we find:

• No starter strip at the eave. The first course of a shingle roof is supposed to be a purpose-made starter strip, sealed down at the edge. We keep finding roofs where the installer used a leftover 30-year architectural shingle instead, or tried to nail and glue the edge down. That leaves a small bump that never seals, and every rain drives water behind the edge and into the fascia.
• Flashing that was never finished properly. Drip edge left short, hips and ridges not terminated, exposed nails along the edge — all of it puts water where the wood is.
• Failed pipe boots and penetrations. A cracked rubber boot runs water down the outside of the pipe and into the decking. In Valley sun those boots last about five or six years, not fifteen.
• Gutters and drainage. Overflowing or back-pitched gutters keep the fascia board wet for days after a storm.

A roof that was installed this way does not look wrong from the driveway. That is the whole problem. The homeowner is happy, the price was the lowest bid, and the rot shows up eight or nine years into what should have been a thirty-year roof.

What we actually do on the job

1. Assessment before the proposal. We measure the visible damage and photograph it, and we tell you plainly that there is usually more underneath.
2. Tear-off tells the truth. Once the old roof comes off and we are down to bare wood, the real extent shows. On a recent McAllen-area job that turned out to be 120 linear feet of fascia board plus several sheets of decking.
3. We measure and tell you during the job, not after. Exact linear footage, exact sheet count, before anything gets covered up. A lot of crews will lay new roofing straight over rotted wood because the homeowner will never know and the price never has to change. We do not do that.
4. Replace, prime and finish. New fascia board and soffit, sealed and painted to match, and the roof edge rebuilt correctly with a real starter strip so it does not happen again.

Can it be repaired, or does it all have to go?

A short run of rot at one corner — usually under a failed valley or a bad pipe boot — can be cut out and replaced on its own. But when the cause is a missing starter strip along the whole eave, the water has been getting in along the entire edge, and replacing the fascia without replacing the roof just buries the problem for another few years. In that case we quote the roof replacement and the wood together so there is one number and no surprises.

Signs to look for from the ground

• Paint bubbling, peeling or staining on the fascia board.
• Soffit panels sagging, bowing or coming loose at the wall.
• Dark streaks running down the fascia under a valley or a gutter joint.
• Wasps, birds or squirrels getting into the eave — they get in through soft wood.
• Wood you can push a screwdriver into. If it gives, it is gone.

See it for yourself

We filmed this on a McAllen house — the third one in two weeks with the same missing starter strip and the same rotted soffit and fascia. Watch the video walkthroughs to see what it looks like up close, and what we check on every inspection.

Free inspection, real photos, no pressure

A free roof inspection takes under an hour and you get photos of whatever we find, including the edge of the roof and the condition of the wood. If the damage is storm-related, here is how roof insurance claims work. For an active leak, see roof repair in McAllen.

Frontline Roofing — McAllen, Mission, Edinburg and the Rio Grande Valley. Call (956) 586-5711.