"Always try to get cedar wood. It's perfect for staining. It stains the best. You want to make sure that the poles are not going to be pressed in. Make sure the poles are going to be put in concrete, 18 and 24 inches deep. What you can do if you want an almost maintenance-free fence is go with a chain-link. You can get it in vinyl. If you need colors, then, it also comes with slab. The slabs will give all the privacy you want.
The slabs go in between each link. Then, we have a locking corner at the very bottom where you lock the fence," Williams says.
Once you decide on the type of wood you want, it's important to know what you're up against. If not properly taken care of, wood privacy fences will rot. So you will have to do plenty of work to keep your wooden privacy fence in tip-top condition.
"Wood takes maintenance. We use all cedar. Our fences last 15 to 20 years, maintenance free, pretty much. What we use on ours is galvanized nails. What I mean is, the nail will be galvanized so that you will not get any rusting. The nails won't rub down and break. Cedar is the number one wood to stain and treat. If you seal cedar, you know it will sweat and won't be able to release it. The sweat will cause it to rot up on the inside, but you can stain it. You can seal pretty much any wood to keep the maintenance up," Williams says.
Williams says going with a professional will definitely allow you to be worry-free about wooden privacy fence maintenance concerns. If you decide to build your own privacy fence, you will have to do the research to find out the information the experts already know. It will take time, but in the end you will have a fence that will last a lot longer.
If you're going the do-it-yourself route, Williams suggests getting books from the hardware store on building privacy fences. Along with that, figure out a budget you can work with. You don't want to start building your fence and then find you can't finish it because you don't have enough money. You will end up with an unfinished fence, which cannot serve its ultimate purpose: containment of a particular space. Williams says hiring a professional will cost you more money, but it will save a lot of time and research. Hiring a professional will also insure that your privacy fence gets built right. From there, you can insure your fence for a certain amount of years, in case anything happens.
