Hey Ed, a contractor asks when calculating for the eaves with gutters that are 29″ long and all the windows are 3″ from the top overhang – is this normal?

In this edition of “Hey Ed,” Ed discusses calculating from an overhang.

Hey Ed, a contractor asks when calculating for the eaves with gutters that are 29" long and all the windows are 3" from the top overhang. Is this normal? Yes, it in fact is very normal. What’s not normal? I’m not used to hearing it called the eaves. I’m used to hearing it called the soffit. Either way that part’s irrelevant. Seeing windows that are right up against the bottom of the soffit? Not that unusual. In fact you could describe virtually any type of setup and I would say that nothing surprises me with that. But what’s important is that we enter those dimensions into our manual J program properly so that the program can determine if the windows are going to see the solar gain that comes from the sun at a specific time of the day and that’s the way I see it.