Every architectural style has its accents, charm, and decorative features that help make that style great. Whether it’s Victorian gingerbread or the more geometric forms on an Arts and Crafts bungalow, architectural accents are what makes the style complete.
Fascia is one of the components that goes into completing a home’s style. It serves several purposes on the exterior and is the ideal finishing touch on any new siding project. Learn how to make the most of your siding with fiber cement fascia, to get the best style and protection possible for your home.
What Is Fascia?
In the most traditional sense, fascia is the trim that hides the unfinished ends of rafters, soffits, and siding on the exterior of your home. When building a home, the ends of the roof, the corners, and the overhangs and other areas aren’t treated the way that the rest of the façade is. While, the roof is covered in one material, and the exterior walls covered in another, the edges are trimmed out in fascia.
This is a flat material that may be plain or decorative in appearance. It may have a smooth finish or a wood grain, and it’s usually painted in a color that complements the rest of the exterior. Fascia is what finishes the exterior of a home, and in many cases it’s also what gives it a lot of its style and presence.
How Fascia Benefits a Home
Most of the time, people assume that the fascia is simply a decorative or finishing element in the home’s exterior. And to some extent this is true; fascia can be used to give the home a completed look or to add decorative detail to places like the eaves.
But fascia also helps to protect your home from the elements. Fascia covers the rafters and eaves of your roof and keeps out moisture and pests that could damage this crucial area. Fascia and trim also hide the edges of siding and the gaps where two sides come together. This ensures that no moisture is allowed beneath the edges of the siding, where it could cause problems such as mold growth or wood rot.
In some architectural styles, fascia is also part of what gives the exterior of the home its character. Decorative fascia is a key component to completing the appearance of Tudor, Arts and Crafts, Victorian, and Colonial homes among others. Fascia may be plain or cut into shapes, and it can be painted in colors that either call attention to it or allow it to blend in with its surroundings.
Fascia Materials
Historically, fascia was always made of wood, just as traditional lap siding was. But, wooden fascia and trim has the same problems that wooden siding does; it’s high maintenance and not nearly as durable as it should be, given the area of the home it’s installed on.
Fascia is meant to help protect your home from the elements, while also improving its appearance. Wooden fascia may peel, chip, crack, or rot, which then allows moisture to get in behind it. At the same time, this peeling and chipping detracts from the appearance of the home, so even decorative fascia becomes an eyesore, rather than an accent.
Today, fascia is available in several materials, including more durable fiber cement. Fiber cement trim and fascia is much more durable than wood. It won’t peel, chip, or crack, so it won’t need to be scraped and painted every few years and won’t detract from your home’s curb appeal.
At the same time, the added cement helps boost the durability of the fascia; now this important area can truly help to protect the edges of your home, the way that it is meant it. Fiber cement fascia is also resistant to insect activity and fire, as well as moisture, providing superior durability and performance over its lifetime.
Fiber cement fascia and trim is designed to complement fiber cement siding and architectural panels. It can be smooth or have the appearance of a real wood grain. It’s also available in several sizes, so you can easily customize the exterior of the home to match its architectural style. And like all fiber cement products, the color will last for years without needing maintenance, so you can enjoy the exterior longer.
Complete Your Home with Fiber Cement Fascia
Get all the benefits of durable, low maintenance, and attractive fiber cement for every area of your exterior, including the trim. Use fiber cement fascia to complete the eaves, overhangs, and corners of your home to gain true durability and protection in these important areas. Whether your home is decorative or contemporary, fiber cement fascia can help accent its style and give you the look and protection you need.
