Sealing gape between wall and soffit boards

[graduate_owner]

Hi all, I need to pick some brains here.
My house is a barn conversion, with stone walls. Where the walls meet the soffit boards there are plenty of gaps, some as much as an inch. Cutting the soffit to exactly match up to the irregular stone wall would be really difficult. So what I have done along one section is to remove one strip of tongue and groove which forms the soffit and use the gap created to pack cement into the gap, with chicken wire crinkled up to support the cement while it sets.
However removing the tongue and groove strip is difficult, and replacing it is worse.

So is there an easier way around this?

I don't want to just pump a load of foam in there because it will look ugly and won't stop mice from gnawing their way through. Any ideas folks?

K

 

[MikeG.]

Eaves details: they're always great fun!!

Soffits aren't a standard barn detail. It sounds as though your ad hoc solution involving render and mesh will be joining to timber, which is never a great idea. Any chance of a drawing or a photo of your eaves?

 

[graduate_owner]

The cement seems to adhere to the stone, but probably not to the timber soffit. However it only needs to sit there in order to stop mice, wasps etc. so it does the job, but as I said it's an awkward job. I will try to upload a sketch anyway.
The total length of soffit is about 80 feet.

K

 

[Terry - Somerset]

It may be better to buy some silicon rubber strip which is available in a range of widths - search on ebay gives a number of results.

This could be stapled or nailed to the existing soffit and if flexible should largely mirror the stone profile. Worth trying a strip as much less hassle than what you are currently planning.

 

[Eric The Viking]

On the groove side of the soffit T+G, remove the inner "tongue" of the last joint so you just have an overlap.

Offset scribe it in the normal way (clamp it underneath the last-but-one bit of T+G, exactly aligned with it, but offset towards the wall by whatever gap you want in the finished arrangement), and use a very short offcut to give you the scribe distance to the wall. A longer piece will work, but it "averages" the scribe gap rather than tracks it exactly.

When you finally fix, simply screw the innermost soffit board to the supporting battens. You really won't notice the screws, honestly!

If you want it totally sealed, you can then mastic the small gap you'll have left. This is possibly a good idea as it's a favourite spot for wasp nests. But roofs need to breathe, so something like fine mesh fitted behind might be better - easy to do if the last board is also easily removable.

That gives you a far more serviceable arrangement than building out from the wall. If not that, then batten/trim fixed to the wall as a ledge to rest the last soffit board on, but IMHO that wouldn't be as neat.

E.

PS: I don't quite understand how doing the scribe is really difficult, unless you are attempting all this off a ladder, rather than a proper scaffold. If you are, stop now before you have an accident - the very thought makes me shudder, but then my eaves are 30 feet up with nice concrete to land on!