I bought my ranch home about 2 years ago. Last year and this year I have had a problem with carpenter bees drilling holes through my Fascia. The previous owner had new seamless gutters put on but did not paint the fascia boards. As a result all the paint is peeling off or is peeled off showing exposed wood. The bees got behind the gutters as well into the fascia.

******The rail for the soffit is attached to the backside of the fascia!
******Gutters are attached to Fascia with Nail Spikes

I was going to hire someone but I just got back to work and cannot afford it

At this point I am wondering the following:
1. How do I drop the gutters without wrecking them (it's about 40 feet long to the corners)

2. Should I replace or patch the holes in the fascia board with dap plastic wood and then strip, sand , paint?

3. How do I rehang gutters since nails will just back out of existing holes?

Overall how hard will this be ?

 

Welcome to the forums!

I'll leave the gutter question for the others but on the fascia, to repair or replace depends on the extent of the damage, they can burrow a long ways into the wood You'll also want to treat any holes before you patch them, the eggs are inside and can bore their way out later the adults tend to return to their place of birth so it can be an ongoing issue.

 

do the eggs stay dormant ? I would have thought they would have hatched by now...
They went right through the fascia board, so I'm assuming they are in the soffit which is plastic...

The soffit is quite wide I think 20" maybe more it quite an overhang

 

I don't know how long it takes the eggs to hatch. Carpenter bees bore a nice hole and then angle thru the wood. I have a piece of 2x6 fascia board that I split in two after removing it because of borer bee damage. It's unreal how much of the wood was eaten away. Sometimes they will have 2 entrances ... or is one an exit I bought a duster that I use to 'spray' sevin dust into the holes. It helps but you have to keep after it.

 

Good luck trying to get those old style gutters off without damage.
I just cut the nails off with a sawsall and replace with new seamless gutters most of the time.
Fill the hole if there's still a larvae in the wood and it's just going to bore another hole to get out, or the wood peckers are going to show up and go to town on it.
Depending on how bad it is I shoot in some wasp spay and cover the wood with coil stock.
That way there's no more painting, wood rot or insects.

 

I think you should be alright. I've been working a lot on my fascia boards recently, and decided to go a different route from wood for the material.

1) Carpenter bees are a pain in the butt. The two best ways to get rid of them are a tennis rachet (while simultaneously improving your backhand ), and sevin. Your goal is to get the whole nest. If you seal the whole, you may kill the ones inside, but the ones on the outside will survive to bore another hole. Coat any openings you have with the powdered version of sevin (you can use the liquid, but I find the powder works better). Then let the bee's come marching back to their home, coat themselves in sevin, and walla...they die the slow death they deserve (sevin is actually an insect paralytic if I'm correct...it doesn't actually kill them...they just can't move)

2) For your gutters, I'd say it depends on the hangers they used. There are mulltiple different types, and many are just screw in (which I found out the hard way after trying to pry them off). The point is, you should be able to get the body of the gutters off without much issue (if you're careful). Anything attached to the sheathing or rafter overhang above the gutters that's not attached to your fascia, you should be able to leave on.

3) If you have carpenter bees, they'll likely be an annual problem. Rather than going back to wood, and then having to stain and maintain it...I'd recommend considering the PVC board. I'm reroofing my house right now, and had water damage to my fascia boards. I'd already put up 1x8's that I'd stained, but they didn't look great...so I'd eventually have to cover them with aluminum trim that would be impossible to find. Instead I went with the PVC board. I'll probably still wind up painting them, but if you're careful, even that isn't necessary (if you have white trim). The best part is...no more carpenter bees. The only real downside is the boards aren't cheap...but compared to the primed pine boards you can get at Lowes...they're only about $5-$10 more depending on the size you're looking for. They're easy to install with some PVC finishing screws. I highly recommend them based on the install I did yesterday.

Good Luck

 

Those eggs are hatched right now. What happens is the adults come out some time in the spring and start drilling holes and laying eggs. They die shortly after the tunnels are dug and the eggs are laid. In late summer/early fall (right around now) the eggs hatch and the next generation of bees comes out to feed a few more times before going into hibernation. They leave really early in the morning and come back around dusk so if you're not there at the right time you won't realize that there's a freshly hatched generation of bees popping in and out of there.

The holes need to be treated with an insecticide dust and then patched. Paint repels carpenter bees but that is not 100%. If they have discovered your fascia and gotten used to making that their home, you can forget about eliminating the problem with a few easy moves. They'll gravitate back to it every year just like they do my deck and each year they'll try to start their holes in less visible, harder to reach areas where they'll be more protected.

Paint would be good.

Aluminum wrap would be better.

Get an exterminator to apply a 90 day residual repellent spray to your fascia every year.

Even then, inspect them periodically for new holes and blow 7 dust into them whenever you find them.