Consider Installing a New Fence When Selling Your Home

Building a backyard wood fence entails more than just burying posts in the ground and nailing on slats. To make sure your fence remains strong and long-lasting requires you to take some steps to ensure its integrity. Here are several fence building tips to help you make sure your wood fence is attractive and does its job or providing you privacy for many years.

Select Attractive Materials

Choosing the wood you will use on your fence can make or break its appearance, as the surface of each wood slat and post will be visible around your entire yard. When you go to the lumberyard or home improvement store, look for a wood slat that has a decorative top with its top corners cut to give your fence top visual interest.

Look for and select slats that do not have any discolored areas, mold, and mildew, or other fungus stains, and are not bent. Slats that have become wet after cutting can dry with a curve to them and make it difficult to align your fence slats in a straight manner. Then, choosing slats that have been pre-stained a beautiful color will help protect the wood to the elements in addition to looking great around your yard.

Protect the Fence Materials

There are several steps you can take to make sure your fence remains standing and sturdy for as long as possible without added discoloration from your metal nails. First, choose the right type of fasteners to attach the brackets to the posts and the slats to the fence rails. It is recommended to use stainless steel screws to attach the materials together, which will not cause a stain to run down your fence slats from a corrosion from the attachment's metal. And using screws helps hold the slats more sturdy. Over time, nails tend to slip out of the wood and loosen your fence.

Next, you should treat the bottom portion of each fence post with a fungicide to prevent deterioration of the post as it sits within the ground. Line the bottom of each fence post hole with several inches of gravel to provide gravel for drainage of moisture away from your fence post.

As you fill each hole around the fence post with concrete, build up a mound of concrete around the post with a shovel or trowel to keep soil and moisture from coming into contact the the fence post. This will additionally help prevent moisture deterioration to your supporting fence posts. Check out a website like http://townandcountryfence.net/ for more information and assistance.