How to install soffit extenders

Last weekend I installed soffit extenders and increased the insulation in my attic. The first quarter or so of the house took me a long time. I had gotten a pretty good system by then, though, and was able to do the next third to a half of the house much quicker. Then I found an even better way to install them. I will lead you through the process.

The first thing that you want to do before you install your soffit extenders is to determine how many that you need. It became quickly obvious that I did not have enough when I was trying to figure out how to install them, so I went and bought more. I still wound up about 4 shy of what I needed. Climb up into your attic and count the number of joists on each side of the house, and then multiply that by two. You probably do not need to count the corners; the joists at the edges of my house were too narrow to fit an extender. I also skipped one that had ventilation coming out of my plumbing system to the roof, since it would have been too much trouble to try to get behind it. I bought raft-r-mate foam soffit extenders for about a buck and a half per pair of them.

Next, make sure that you have the proper equipment. This includes safety equipment (especially a hard hat if you have as many nails sticking out of your roof as I do) and a floor that you can carry with you if you have no floor in the attic already. You may also want something that you can push or pull the insulation with; I used a pair of old curtain rods.

When I first started, I would set up my floor near the steep slope of the roof. I would lay on my stomach and reach out and pull the insulation back enough to get the soffit extender past the insulation, and would then scooch back to get on my knees. I would then push the soffit extender over the insulation to where it needed to be, and then schooch forward again on my stomach to replace the insulation. This was pretty time consuming.

Next, I started positioning myself so that I could stay in one place while I worked. I would pull the insulation back, and then lean to the side. I’d bring the soffit extender past my body and try to position it in place, and then use the curtain rods to push the insulation back where it belonged.

Towards the end, I found that pulling back the insulation was a waste of time. By using both curtain rods, I was able to push the insulation down and then just slide the soffit extender over the insulation without pulling any of it up. Then I just had to pull the curtain rods back out and move on to the next one.

Another time saver was that I would set up the floor boards all in a row so that I could just keep moving along the floor. I was using 3 of them at that point to give myself a 12 foot floor to roll down. I then took a few smaller boards and would place them over the joists in front of me to balance my upper body on. These ones I just moved down each pair of joists as I worked.

Hopefully if you ever take up this sort of a project there will be something in here that can help you. I certainly managed to finish the last third or so of the soffits much faster than I was able to do any of the first 3/4 of the house. The first third took me a few hours. The second third took me about an a hour and a half or so. The rest of the house took about a half hour or 45 minutes.