Historic HomeWorks Forum

[TideWater]

The fascia boards on my porch have rot at the ends and one has a chunk missing. I'm trying to decide whether to pull them off entirely and just replace them or to patch them with a dutchman and epoxy. In my limited experience, the patches stand out and it's particularly hard to get the corners right. So my first choice would be to replace them. But if the wood is old enough to have historic value, I'll patch.

This porch dates at least to the 1850s but the whole house was rehab'd in 1995. And I don't know what they did to the porch.

Any ideas how to determine how old these boards are?

[TimB]

This reply is coming a bit late and you've probably already sorted things out, but I have a couple of opening suggestions for dating the boards:
1) Look at the fasteners: cut vs. wire nails.
2) You'll have to pull the boards for this, but look at the back side to "read" the technology used to in their manufacture. Were they cut with an up-and-down saw? Circular saw? Bandsaw? Were they finished on the backside with a (relatively) modern rotary planer?
These clues will give can give you some sense of how old the boards are.

[TideWater]

Thanks. Not too late and very helpful.