I am in the process of purchasing Vinyl Soffit material for my one story ranch. I have figured that I need approximately 180 lineal feet of material. The house is 54' long by 25' wide and the the overhang at the soffit is 19". My real question is do I want continuous vented soffit or is that overkill? I have approximately 8 roof vents and gable vents at both ends of the house. The reason I am replacing is there is several spots in the current soffits that have warped and the whole thing needs to be painted. Oh by the way, the house is made of brick if that makes any difference.

 

Come on, somebody must have an opinion about whether or not I should buy continuous vented siding for soffit material or buy the other the has vents down the middle.

 

Personally, I hate vinyl soffit. Aluminum soffit is much better- lays flatter, won't flex in the wind or bow down under it's own weight, provided it's nailed properly. But putting that aside, whatever type of soffit you purchase, I'd recommend that you get center vented panels. IMO, it looks better and there's really no reason for the entire panel to have vents.

180 lin ft sounds about right.

 

From recent personal experience: I always install center vent regardless, easier for me since I dont have to keep 2 panel types on hand and then stagger them correctly.

But I found on my personal house-the typical kind where attic insulation is stuffed in between the top plate and bottom of the roof deck-I removed that insulation with intentions of later that summer of installing the poly chutes under the roof deck and blowing in some more insulation...I did'nt get to it until a few weeks ago (2yrs later LOL) and what I found in the attic suprised me.

SOOO much air was now able to flow up through the new soffit it literally wind washed the attic insulation and drifted it like snow, so along the north/northwest wall of my house I had 3-4' of exposed ceiling drywall since the insulation was blown off of it. So it would be my advise so your not living in a deep freeze in the winter or sauna in the summer to install some poly chutes either prior to installing the new soffit or shortly after to keep the air flow up and above the attic insualtion.

I'd never seen that before but it was a great learning experience to say the least.

 

Thank you. That is the type of information I was looking for. Looks like I will go for the center vented soffit.