Fascia is the vertical board that runs along the edge of your roof, capping the ends of the rafters. It is the board your gutters hang on. When it fails, it does not fail quietly, it takes the gutter with it, and the water that used to go into the gutter starts going down the wall instead. Roof Commander repairs and replaces fascia across Franklin, Fairview, Nashville, and the rest of Middle Tennessee, and Chad Warren has been doing this work in this market since 2001. If your gutters are pulling away from the house, the fascia is usually the reason. See also soffit if you are noticing issues with the underside of your roof overhang.
The fascia sits at the one spot on your house where water is most concentrated. Every square foot of roof drains toward that edge. If the drip edge flashing is missing, undersized, or was installed behind the gutter instead of over the back of it, water wicks backward off the shingle and runs down the face of the fascia board rather than falling into the gutter.
Do that for a few hundred Middle Tennessee rainstorms and the board stays wet longer than it dries. Paint blisters, the wood goes soft at the fastener holes, and the gutter spikes or hangers lose their grip. Now the gutter sags, which means it holds standing water, which means it is heavier, which pulls harder on a board that is already rotting. That loop is why fascia almost always fails from the back side, and why it looks fine from the driveway right up until the gutter comes off in a storm.
Walk the perimeter and look at the line where the gutter meets the house.
A gutter that has visibly separated from the fascia, or that has a wavy line instead of a straight one, is telling you the mounting surface is soft. Streaking or dark vertical staining on the siding directly below a gutter seam means water has been running behind the gutter, and whatever is behind it has been getting soaked. Peeling paint concentrated on the fascia while the rest of the trim holds up fine is a moisture signal, not a paint quality problem. Any place you can see the gutter hanger pulling out is a board that has already lost its structural fastening.
Inside, look at the ceiling on the top floor near the exterior walls. Fascia rot that has run long enough will let water into the rafter tails and show up as staining on the ceiling edge before anybody notices anything outside.
Three honest options, and they are not interchangeable.
Repair makes sense when the rot is confined to one or two sections and the rest of the run is sound. We cut back to solid wood, scarf in new material, and match the profile. It is the cheapest path and it is the right call more often than most contractors will admit.
Aluminum wrapping is what most homeowners around Franklin ask for. A coil stock aluminum cover is bent to fit and installed over the wood, which means no more painting and no more direct water contact. The critical detail, and the one that gets done wrong constantly, is that wrapping rotted wood does nothing except hide it. The wood underneath keeps deteriorating, sealed in, out of sight, until the gutter falls off a board you cannot inspect anymore. We do not wrap over rot. Ever. The wood gets replaced first or the wrap does not go on.
Full replacement is the answer when the run is gone or when the sub-fascia framing behind it is compromised. On homes near downtown Franklin with original wood detailing, we replace in kind and paint rather than wrapping, both because it looks correct and because the historic district has opinions about aluminum.
You cannot fix one and ignore the other two, and this is where a lot of money gets wasted in this market.
New gutters hung on rotted fascia will sag again inside two years. New fascia installed without correcting a missing or improperly lapped drip edge will rot again the same way the last one did. And a gutter that is undersized or has too few downspouts for the roof area draining into it will overflow at the back edge every hard rain, which soaks the fascia no matter how new it is.
When we take a fascia job, we look at all three. If your gutters are the actual problem, we will tell you that, and you can read about how we size and hang them on our gutters page. If the drip edge is wrong, we correct it while the gutter is down, because that is the only time it is cheap to do.
Anyone who has owned a house in Williamson County for more than a few years knows this one.
Carpenter bees bore into exposed wood fascia, particularly on the sunny south and west faces and particularly where the paint has thinned. The tunnels run along the grain and can extend several inches into the board. Then woodpeckers hear the larvae and open the board up to get at them, which turns a set of small round holes into long torn out channels.
Filling the holes does not solve it. The tunnel network inside the board is already there, it holds water, and the bees return to the same wood year after year. On a board that far gone, the fix is replacement, and then either an aluminum wrap or a properly maintained paint film so there is no bare wood to drill into. This is one of the most common reasons we get called out for fascia work in this part of Tennessee, and it is worth handling before the woodpeckers find it.
Roof Commander has been an insurance claims specialist since 2001, and fascia is one of the most commonly missed line items on a roof claim.
Wind that lifts shingles at the eave also gets under the drip edge and works on the fascia. Hail that dents a gutter frequently damages the fascia behind it and the soffit above it. A falling limb that takes out a gutter run almost always damages the board it was hung on. All of it is storm damage. All of it is claimable. Very little of it gets paid, because very little of it gets written into the loss summary.
Chad meets the adjuster on the property personally and documents the full exterior, roof, gutters, fascia, soffit, and siding, in one pass. That is the practical advantage of hiring one contractor for the whole envelope rather than a roofer plus a gutter company plus a handyman. Nothing falls between the scopes, and you are not filing a supplement two months later.
Fascia is priced by linear foot, but the linear foot number is not what decides the total.
Height and access matter most. A two story run over a landscaped bed with no ladder footing takes longer than the same footage over a flat driveway. Whether the gutters have to come down and go back up matters. Whether we find rotted rafter tails behind the fascia matters a great deal, because that is framing work, not trim work, and it is the single most common reason a fascia quote moves after somebody actually opens the board up.
Wrapping in aluminum adds material cost up front and removes painting cost forever, so on most Franklin homes it pays for itself. Chad quotes off an in person look, the estimate is free, and if sectional repair is the honest answer you will not be sold a full run.
"Gutters were sagging on the back of the house and I figured I needed new gutters. Chad came out and showed me the board they were bolted to was completely soft. Replaced the bad sections, wrapped it, rehung the same gutters. Cost me a lot less than the gutter company had quoted me for gutters that would have fallen right back off." Doug M., Franklin
Press a screwdriver into the board near a gutter hanger. Sound wood resists. If the tip sinks in or the surface crumbles, the board is rotted and painting over it only hides it. Peeling paint that returns within a season after a good repaint is almost always moisture in the wood, not a bad paint job.
Yes, when the wood underneath is sound. Wrapping rotted wood is one of the worst things a contractor can do, because the rot continues out of sight until the gutter pulls off a board nobody can inspect. We replace any compromised wood first, then wrap.
In almost every case yes, and that is actually the best time to correct anything wrong with the drip edge or the gutter pitch, because the labor to take them down is already spent. We rehang the existing gutters if they are in good shape rather than pushing you into new ones.
It stops the cycle if you remove the reason they are there. Woodpeckers are going after carpenter bee larvae inside the wood. New board plus either an aluminum wrap or a maintained paint film means no bare wood for the bees, which means nothing for the woodpeckers to hunt.
When it was caused by a covered event such as wind, hail, or a fallen limb, generally yes. The catch is that it has to be documented and included in the loss summary. Chad walks the full exterior with the adjuster specifically so items like fascia and soffit do not get left off the scope.
Most single runs are a one day job. A full perimeter on a two story home with gutter removal and reinstall is usually two days. If we find rotted rafter tails behind the board, add a day for the framing repair.
Roof Commander installs full replacement roofing systems across Franklin, Brentwood, Nashville, and the rest of Middle Tennessee. We have been doing it since 2001, we are GAF certified and Owens Corning Preferred, and most residential replacements we do are finished in a single day.
Learn about Roof Replacement in Franklin, TNA roof leak does not wait for a convenient time. Roof Commander repairs leaks, storm damage, failed flashing, and missing shingles across Franklin, Brentwood, Nashville, and Middle Tennessee, and on urgent leaks we frequently get out the same day you call.
Learn about Roof Repair in Franklin, TNThis page is about the damage and the repair. For how the claim itself works, from filing through the final check, see insurance claim assistance.
Learn about Storm Damage Restoration in Franklin, TNThis page is about the claim process. For what hail and wind actually do to a roof and how we restore it, see storm damage restoration.
Learn about Roof Insurance Claim Assistance in Franklin, TNRoof Commander inspects roofs across Franklin, Brentwood, Nashville, and Middle Tennessee at no charge. That includes storm damage inspections, pre purchase inspections on a home you are buying, and annual checkups on a roof you want to keep an eye on.
Learn about Free Roof Inspections in Franklin, TNPart of our roof repair service. If water is coming in right now, call (615) 218-6872 rather than reading further.
Learn about Emergency Roof Repair in Franklin, TNPart of our roof replacement service. Compare against asphalt shingle before you decide.
Learn about Metal Roofing in Franklin, TNPart of our roof replacement service. Compare against metal roofing before you decide.
Learn about Asphalt Shingle Roofing in Franklin, TNSiding is the other half of your home's weather envelope, and it fails quietly. Roof Commander installs and repairs vinyl, fiber cement, and Hardie siding across Franklin, Brentwood, Nashville, and Middle Tennessee.
Learn about Siding Installation and Repair in Franklin, TNGutters are the least glamorous part of a house and one of the most consequential. Their job is to take every gallon that lands on your roof and put it somewhere that is not against your foundation.
Learn about Gutter Installation and Repair in Franklin, TNRoof Commander handles interior and exterior painting across Franklin, Brentwood, Nashville, and Middle Tennessee. A lot of this work comes at the end of a restoration job, when a storm put water through a ceiling or hail took the finish off the trim, and the homeowner would rather not hire a separate painter to close out the project.
Learn about Interior and Exterior Painting in Franklin, TNRoof Commander is a general contractor, not only a roofing company. Chad and Grover Warren are third generation contractors, and the family business has covered construction, remodeling, framing, drywall, flooring, concrete, stucco, and plastering going back decades.
Learn about Home Renovations and Remodeling in Franklin, TNShingles are not rated for low pitch, and installing them there is one of the most common roofing mistakes we find in Middle Tennessee. If you have a porch roof, an addition, or a section over a garage that keeps leaking no matter how many times somebody patches it, this is almost certainly why.
Learn about Flat and Low Slope Roofing in Franklin, TNSoffit is the panel that closes off the underside of your roof overhang, the part you see when you stand under the eave and look straight up. Most homeowners in Franklin never think about it until it starts sagging, a squirrel gets behind it, or a painter points out that the wood has gone soft.
Learn about Soffit Repair and Replacement in Franklin, TN