One of the nicest things about owning your own home is that you have a little space to call your own. A wood privacy fence is one of the country’s most popular ways of delineating what is yours and what belongs to your neighbors. While there are many different fence heights, a wood fence is usually 4, 5, or 6 feet tall. Four foot tall fences are most often seen in front yards, where the need to protect the property has to balance with issues of appearance.
The Purpose Of A Fence
Five and six foot fences are very common in back yards, where the idea is to provide both privacy and protection. These taller fences are harder to climb over and thus deter criminals and wandering animals from either viewing or entering the family’s prime playtime and storage area without an extraordinary effort. While vinyl is slowly growing in popularity as a fence material, the average privacy fence continues to be built out of wood.
How Fences Are Built
All privacy fencing, including vinyl fence, starts with the setting of fence posts into the ground. Except in certain artistic cases, fences tend to run in straight or gently curving lines that match the property boundaries or follow alongside some significant geographical border. Holes are dug into the ground, with the minimum depth being calculated as one third of the height of the fence above ground. A six foot high fence therefore requires a minimum of a two foot deep hole. Most, but not all, posts, are set in concrete to keep the posts standing firm and straight along the line of construction.
While the usual privacy fence made of vinyl employs complete panels, a wood privacy fence is typically built out of individual parts. After the posts have set, the next step is to apply the rails to the posts. These rails are lengths of lumber that run horizontally between the posts. While it is possible to use two rails between each post, this is most often done only on the shorter fence heights. Current industry standard on a six foot high fence calls for three rails running at the approximate top, middle, and bottom of the height of the fence.
Once the rails have been installed, it is time to put up the pickets on the privacy fence. Pickets are thin slats of lumber and generally come in either a 1×4 or 1×6 configuration. What this means is that the pickets have a nominal thickness of one inch and a width of either four or six inches. They come precut to standard four, five and six foot lengths depending on which type of fence you are building. Pickets are most often found in a so-called “dog-ear” configuration. This means that a one inch by one inch triangle has been cut off the top of the picket on each side. Pickets are dog-eared to provide a uniform appearance in those instances where the fence is not assembled on a perfectly level stretch of ground.
Types Of Lumber
A wood privacy fence is built out of lumber that comes in several different grades that last longer or shorter. The following list shows what is least expensive and least durable at the top and moves down to most expensive and most durable at the bottom of the list:
- Standard lumber, usually yellow or white pine
- Treated lumber, pine lumber treated with a chemical solution to deter rotting
- Cedar lumber, particularly Western Red Cedar, the redder the better
- Redwood, the king of all outdoor lumber
By selecting good quality materials and using a reasonable amount of care in construction, a sturdy wood privacy fence that last for twenty to thirty years can be built by almost anybody.
