A fence that's leaning, missing boards or looking gray and tired doesn't always need to come out. A lot of the fences we look at in Erie, Lafayette, Superior and Arvada only need a few posts and some boards. Others are past saving, and patching them just means paying twice. Here's how to tell the difference.
Start with the posts
The posts are the whole fence. Boards and rails are cheap and easy to swap. Posts are the part that decides between a repair and a replacement.
- Push on each post. A post that rocks or leans has either rotted at the ground or worked loose in the soil.
- Poke the wood at ground level with a screwdriver. If it sinks in easily, the post is rotting.
- Count the bad ones. One to three bad posts on a run is a normal repair. When most of the posts are going, the rest won't be far behind.
Wood posts set the wrong way, with concrete poured under the post (called "teacupping"), tend to rot early. Our teacupping guide explains why.
Signs a repair makes sense
- Only one section is leaning, usually after a windstorm.
- A few boards are cracked, warped or missing.
- A rail has pulled loose from a post or split at a screw.
- The gate sags or drags, but the fence around it is solid. See fixing a sagging gate.
- The fence is less than about 10 to 12 years old and was built with good materials.
Signs it's time to replace
- Several posts are rotted or loose in different spots along the fence.
- Boards are soft, split end to end, or crumble when you pull a screw.
- Whole sections lean, and pushing them back just makes them lean again.
- You'd be replacing more than about a third of the fence anyway.
- The fence is 15 to 20 years old or more and hasn't been stained.
- You want something different: taller, more private, a new style or a wider gate.
Will new boards match the old ones?
Not right away. New cedar is orange-tan, and old cedar weathers to silver-gray. The new boards fade toward gray within a season or two. If the match matters, staining the whole fence after a repair blends everything together. See how to make a cedar fence last.
What a good repair looks like
When we replace a post, we dig out the old one and its concrete. We put dirt in the bottom of the hole, set the new post a couple of inches into the dirt, pack it tight, then pour concrete around the sides and crown the top so water runs away. Then we reattach the existing rails and boards wherever they're still sound. Tyler can also replace a single bad section, a rail or a gate without touching the rest.
Not sure which you need?
Send us a few photos or ask for a free estimate. Cody will tell you honestly whether a repair will hold or whether you'd be throwing money at an old fence. If you're leaning toward a new fence, the fence cost calculator gives you a price range in about two minutes, and our fence repair page shows the kinds of repairs we do.