What is a Soffit and How Do I Clean It?

The word soffit comes from French and means ‘something fixed underneath’. And that’s exactly where they are; tucked away underneath your fascia. If you look up at your house from the ground, you’ll be able to see them. So now you know what they are, we’d like to give you some advice on soffit cleaning.

This guide is only for you if you have vinyl/plastic soffits. If you have wooden soffits, here’s a guide to keep them maintained.

Vinyl soffit collects dirt. Whether it be from rain, wind or even possibly birds, it’s important to keep on top of cleaning them. Often the vinyl used to make a soffit is slightly porous, meaning it can and will stain. We recommend cleaning once a year and here we’ve outline a simple three step guide to ensure your soffits are sparking clean.

Firstly, please carefully consider how you access your soffits to clean them. Any task carried out at height involves risk, so please carefully consider this before going ahead. We would recommend using a scaffolding tower rather than a ladder. If you are in any way unconfident, hire a professional to do this for you.

3 Step Guide to Soffit Cleaning

1. Rinse the Soffit

This needs to be done with hot water. If you’re lucky enough to have a hot spigot on your outside tap, well, lucky you! You can attach your hose directly to that. If you don’t, our second recommendation would be to attach the hose to a hot tap maybe in a utility room. If you don’t have any of these options available to you, you can always fill up a bucket with hot water and give them a rinse that way. You could also use a jet washer. For all of the above options, please make sure you’re wearing rubber gloves to protect your hands from the hot water.

2. Use a cleaning agent

There are many vinyl cleaning agents on the market and you are fine to use which ever one you like. We recommend always reading some reviews online before purchasing. Mix the agent as per the instructions. If you have the option to add the cleaning option so your spraying device, you can do this. If not, again go ahead and use your bucket and you can scrub with a Vinyl Cleaning Slider. Once you’ve done this you want to rinse again.

3. Leave it sparking

The above to points will leave your soffits clean, but there are probably still a few little marks here and there- the stubborn spots! To get these shifted, mix some hot water with ordinary washing up liquid in a bucket and use your scrubbing brush to clean them. This combined with some good elbow grease should the job. Give them 1 final rinse and voila, you’re done.