Building a fence may seem like an overall simple process. However, there are actually a lot of common fence-building mistakes to make if you’ve never built one before. City Wide Post Hole Digging has been in the fence-building business for a long time. Let us impart some of our fence-building wisdom onto you by helping you avoid the 3 most common fence-building mistakes.
1. Leaving Your Wood Unsealed
Building a fence is a lot of work and can be quite a lot of money. Why then, do so many people find themselves with rotten, useless fences a few years later? They made the fence-building mistake of not sealing their wood.
If you’re going to build a fence, plan ahead and seal the wood. This can be done in one of two ways: stain or paint.
Staining your fence can be done prior to building, which you may find easier if the weather is hot. Instead of standing out in the sun all day, planks can be stained individually and then leaned against a wall to dry. This also ensures the sides of your fence boards are stained. Just remember: after building your fence, you will need to restain your fence every so often. The amount of time between stains may depend on the stain being used.
Painting your fence can also be done before building it. It’s more common to paint a fence after assembling it. However, painting it beforehand means getting your paint barrier between boards as well. Once the boards are nailed or screwed together, that barrier may not seem important. However, the pressure between boards will keep the paint in place and ensure a good seal from water for years to come. Repainting the fence later will only reinforce that. You won’t need to bother so much with the seams and creases, since they were adequately sealed before assembly.
2. Not Planning Ahead
Easily one of the most common fence-building mistakes is poor planning. There are 4 things you always want to do before starting on building your fence:
- Measure the perimeter where your fence will be built, then divide the distance equally to ensure each segment is the same length.
- Mark out where your post holes will go before you start digging them. This allows you to make adjustments if you find your math was wrong or you didn’t account for corners properly.
- Dig all of your post holes before putting the posts in. This way, if you need to adjust any holes, you can do so without having to remove the posts.
- Buy all of your materials before starting on your fence. You wouldn’t be the first person to buy half the needed materials only to not have the money for the other half when you expected to. Is there anything worse than trying to get back to a half-finished project?
3. Constructing Your Fence Poorly
Finally, the last common fence-building mistake is poor fence construction. This is most often seen with cheap wood, using nails instead of screws, and not taking your time to do things right. If you want a high quality fence and you don’t want to put in the time and energy yourself, it’s easy to get what you want. Simply hire City Wide Post Hole Digging to build your fence for you. We’re professional, experienced, and can save you a lot of time and effort. Give us a call today if you’re interested in a quote or have questions about our services.
