THE IMPORTANCE OF EAVESTROUGHS, SOFFITS AND FASCIA
BY KRISTIN MARAND
You’ve designed your dream home — the perfect closets, a spa-like bathroom, a haven of a bedroom and plenty of curb appeal. The dream is the easy part, but functional elements are the backbone to help your dream home last a lifetime.
Y ou’ve probably never given much thought to eavestroughs — until the fall when you’re bombarded by ads reminding you to clean them. Similarly, soffits and fascia are likely terms you’ve heard but may have never really consid- ered before. Scott Sellors of Red River Siding explains how to incorporate these vital ele- ments into your design process to create a polished look to an essential component of your home’s water management system. “Red River Siding has been around since 1995 doing the same scope of work and has adapted to all the changes that have happened over the last 30 years,” Sellors says. “We have seen almost everything, and it helps us in helping our clients with ideas and designs. The best time to start think- ing about these elements is when you’re deciding on the overall look and colours of your exterior.” Eavestroughs, also known as gutters, are an essential part of home engineer- ing that work to protect your house and landscaping. Eavestroughs provide con- trolled diversion of water like rain or snow
melting off your roof and away from your foundation and exterior. Basically, gutters protect your home from water damage, including preventing basement flooding and interior leaks, protecting the founda- tion, safeguarding the exterior finishes and the roof, preserving landscaping from wash-outs and preventing pests that thrive in standing water like the all-too- familiar Manitoba mosquito. Soffits and fascia also work to pro- tect your home but more specifically the roofline, roof and attic. The fascia — an outward-facing piece of material com- monly made of wood, vinyl, composite or fibre cements — physically supports the eavestroughs, seals the rafters’ ends and prevents water from rotting the structure of your roof. Since they face outwards, they can also offer esthetic value. Soffits are the underside of the roof’s overhang and serve to ventilate the attic, while also prevent- ing moisture, mould and heat buildup and blocking pests from making your home their home too. Together, these systems offer weather protection and maintain the structural integrity of your eaves and attic.
94 SPRING 2026 PARADE of HOMES | homebuilders.mb.ca
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