I would definitely go with soffit vents. Be sure to put screen over them to keep beesties out.

Another potential cause is water backing up under the shingles and leaking down behind the verticle peice of wood. An ice dam can cause this but so can a gutter fulll of ice. Gutter fills with water, freezes, expands (pushing shingles up and over), then water melts leaking behind shingles - its just another possibility.

You need to determine if they are rotten on the bottom or the top. Big difference depending...

The first 2 to 3 feet of roof, up from the lower edge, *should* have roll roofing under the shingles. The melt and stick down kind being prefered. This keeps any water that backs up from ice, from leaking under the shingles and getting down behind the facia board. The operative word is should.
In theory, the heat coming through the roof will melt snow but when it runs down the roof the part over the soffit is cold and ice can build up damming the water so that 2 to 3 feet of roll roofing should do the trick.
In theory, I should be rich and handsome too.

Had something similar happen (the problem right under the roof)...fixed the root cause.

Down in the south, most of the water problems come from rain (lots of it! - sometimes sideways); we rarely see snow and ice both of which could enable water to sneak into unlikely places.

The upper one is rotting proably due a badly installed drip gaurd (or flashing as some ppl call it). Water is wicking back into the soffit. If you can, gently lift some roof tiles, and peek underneath. You will most likely see where the roofer trimmed the tar paper too short .

Needless to say, water found its way into both areas. Hopefully not traveling down on the interior wall...


My Fix : by extending some waterproof material over the flashing and (obvously) replacing the rotted plywood soffit, redwood facia, and dead 2X4's struts, I stopped the seepage. Not fun work considering I had a contractor fix it 5 years prior to me working on it.

Now, I've got a ridge vent that allows sideways rain to get in...its allways somethin' ....

ok, what do we know about replacing old fashioned half round gutters? Mine are pretty much fucked, and i think i want to replace them with copper.....anyone ever done this?

LJ I don't know about copper gutters . But I can HIGHLY suggest guttergaurd . The only bad things I have to say about them is ,
1) a little expencive ,
2) I didn't realize just how MUCH water comes off the roof !!! It flooded our front porch untill i dug a drainage trough .

Yes, regular half round, 5" copper gutters. They were only about a buck a foot, 20 years ago, but then all the fittings, end caps and downspout nipples had to be soldered on.
I'd suggest a large soldering iron rather than a torch, unless you're REALLY good with a torch. It takes a really light touch, with a torch, but you can make an iron out of any hunk of steel like an old cold chisel. Just add a heat proof handle and tin the iron. The cast bronze brackets for the facia mounting were $5 each at that time.
It's recommended to paint the inside with gutter paint. I didn't, or rather I put that off till later. You know, when "later" gets here I'm going to be real busy.

FWIW, my career for the past 13 years has been roofing, and now is insulation, and my "professional" opinion is that UT definitely needs attic and soffit venting. You must have positive airflow through your attic and soffit space or bad things happen (like your rotted soffits). Also, you will incur major mold growth, which leads to numerous nasty physical manifestations depending on your sensitivity.

I can't tell for sure from looking at the pics, but is that insulation I'm seeing peeking out from the gap? If so, there's definitely something wrong with the installation, because that space needs to be open for airflow to prevent soffit rot.

So much for my professional opinion.

Used to install them where I worked. Good quality copper gutter systems are pretty damn expensive, but quite durable and attractive. Your antique home would look very nice with new copper gutters, LJ, but you'll need to sell a couple of extra SUVs first.

Yeah, not cheap. the gutteers aren't so bad, but the hangers and downspouts add up to a good bit.....but they are beautiful, and i think it will be worth it.

[offtopic]
Why the hell are all the threads in here in CAPS?
[/offtopic]

To show that they're BIGGER and BETTER than the threads in all those other, less manly forums.

just a personal taste....

why does it matter?

just struck me as odd. Nothing personal.

well, i AM some kind of fucking newbie, and i am odd, so.......

When I first came to the Cellar, a couple people jumped all over me for typing my posts in caps. It just looked better on my screen, but evidently those that have been in the web culture a long time are highly offended by it. They read it as shouting.
I guess because of the limitations of print, in expressing emotions and nuances, they're looking for clues to intent. That makes caps, smilies(sp), punctuation and stuff, much more important than it would appear to, we casual users. Netiquette?