Fascia Board Repair

It has been almost a month now and it looks like my repair work to my fascia board is holding. I think I deserve a pat on my back. Not perfect and a bit rough on the edges I know but this is what I'll get by working with what's at hand. What's left now is to have it painted in the right colour.

This broken section of my fascia has been a thorn in my side for something like 15 years. It's not that I have not gotten it repaired before. I did. Not once but twice. It failed because of shoddy workmanship by my local contractor. The first time round, white cement was used. Without it being painted however, rain water seeped in between the wood and the cement and the patch fell off some months later. The second repair used wood filler. It was then painted over some 30 minutes with some cheap glossy paint. Two years later (i.e. earlier this year), it fell off too. I think the paint has given way (feels a bit powdery) and rain water has gone in between the filler and the wooden panel.

The only thing I bought for this repair was one of those cheaper combi-ladders from China. Yes, I thought, instead of paying someone again for the third time to do a shoddy job, why not reward myself with a ladder and doing it myself. They cost about the same anyway. The broken part of the fascia was about 13 feet off the ground, by the way. So it was not that bad.

I used gray Portland cement and sand (mixed in a 1:3 ratio) to fill in the gap left by the rotting wood in the fascia. Lose bits of rotting wood, wood filler and paint was removed before that. A day later, I skim coated the work-area with just gray cement mixed with water (in a yoghurt like consistency) to give me a smoother finish. A paint brush was used. After letting it dry for close to 2 weeks, I then painted it (2 coats) with some very, very old oil-based paint from ICI.

I hope my repairs will last for a long, long time as I don't fancy climbing up that high on a ladder.