Good to know
Six feet is the standard back yard fence in Texas. Front yards are usually three or four.
Repair or replace
Step 1 of 6
Repair or replace your fence
Roughly a quarter of the pickets gone, posts soft at the dirt, or a second patch on the same stretch: past any of those, new boards buy a season and cost you the price twice. One bad post on a fence that is otherwise sound is a repair, and a good one.
The answer is in the posts, not the pickets
Pickets are cheap and they are cosmetic. Posts hold the fence up. Posts that are hard and set tight make a repair worth doing, and you should do it.
Posts that are soft where they meet the dirt leave nothing to nail a new board to. At that point every dollar you spend buys you one more season.
The repair worth making, and the fence past saving
Keep the fence
Plenty of fences are worth saving. A new fence is the wrong spend for any of these, and we will tell you so on site.
One post leans after a storm and the rest of the fence stands straight.
A gate drags on the ground or will not latch, and the fence itself is sound.
A fence under five years old with two or three cracked pickets.
One section took a hit from a car, a tree limb or a trailer.
The wood is grey but the posts are hard and the rails are tight.
Those are small jobs and they are not ours. Johnson crews build whole fences, so a carpenter or a handyman is the right person to call, and they will cost you far less than we would.
Replace the fence
These are the signs that the structure has gone, not the surface. Two of them together is usually enough. Three is not a close call.
Posts are soft at the ground line. A screwdriver sinks into the wood there.
More than a quarter of the pickets are split, cupped, or already gone.
The fence leans after every storm, and it leans back a little further each time.
Rails are pulling out of the posts in more than one section.
The same stretch took two patches in the last two years.
A repaired section now stands stiffer than the ones beside it, and the next storm finds the weaker one.
The fence is past fifteen years old and was never cedar to begin with.
Every fence fails differently, and only one of them rots
A wood fence gives up at the ground line and tells you there. Vinyl, iron and chain link give you a different sign, and reading the wrong one costs you a fence that had years left.
Wood
Rot at the ground line decides it. Termite galleries in a post decide it faster. Splintering, cupping and a bottom rail that crumbles in your hand all say the same thing, whatever the pickets look like from the street.
Vinyl
Vinyl does not rot, so look for what Texas sun does to it. Chalky discolouring, brittle panels that crack instead of flexing, and posts that bow in the heat. A cracked panel swaps out. A leaning post means the footing went.
Iron and aluminum
Surface rust is cosmetic and sands off. Rust that has eaten pits into the metal is structural, and so is a cracked or crushed weld at a joint. One bent panel is a repair, and a line of them usually means somebody hit it.
Chain link
The fabric outlasts the frame. Check the top rail and the terminal posts first, because a sagging fabric line is almost always a leaning post rather than tired mesh.
Check your own fence in five steps, before anyone drives out
Push the posts
Take a post at shoulder height and lean on it. More than an inch of give means the footing is gone.
Scrape at the ground line
Run a screwdriver into the post right where it meets the dirt. A blade that sinks in means the post is rotting.
Count the bad pickets
Walk one side and count split, cupped or missing boards. Ten bad boards out of forty is a quarter.
Sight down the top
Stand at one corner and look along the top of the fence. A wavy line means the posts are moving.
Work every gate
Open and close each gate. A gate that has dropped is usually the post beside it, not the gate.
Score it
Count your failures. Zero or one, keep the fence. Two, watch it through one more storm season. Three or more, you are buying a fence rather than a section.
What each choice buys you, this year and next
| Repair a section | Replace the fence | |
|---|---|---|
| What you spend today | A fraction of a new fence. Often a few hundred dollars. | A full job, quoted after we measure the fence line in your yard. |
| How long it holds | As long as the posts around it hold, and no longer. | A new fence on new posts, set in fresh concrete. |
| What it does to the rest | Nothing. The boards either side keep aging at the same rate. | The whole line goes back to the same age on the same day. |
| How it looks | New boards next to weathered ones, for about two years. | One colour along the whole fence. |
| What backs the work | Whatever the person who does the work is willing to stand behind. | One year of craftsmanship from us on the whole job. |
| Where you are next year | Looking at the next section, if the posts were already going. | Not thinking about the fence. |
Money in an old fence does not carry forward
A repair buys time on wood that is already near the end of its life. Nothing you spend on the old fence comes off the price of the new one.
The customer we meet most often is replacing a fence that should not have failed this early. They already paid once for doing it the cheap way. The question worth asking is not what this costs today. It is what it costs per year you keep it.
Here is what a new fence covers, start to finish, when that is the answer. See what a fence replacement includes.
Common questions on this decision
Is it cheaper to repair a fence or replace it?
A repair costs less today. A replacement costs less per year you keep it. The honest test is the posts: money spent on a fence with failing posts does not carry forward.
How long should a wood fence last in Texas?
A cedar fence on treated posts commonly gives fifteen to twenty years here. A pine fence in wet clay can give out in eight. Heat, clay movement and standing water decide it.
Can you replace just one section of a fence?
You can, and it will show. New boards sit lighter than weathered ones for about two years. That trade is often worth making when the posts either side are sound.
My fence leans after storms. Is that the posts?
Almost always. A fence that comes back leaning after each storm has footings that are already loose. Straightening the panel does not touch the reason it moved.
What does a new fence include?
The old fence comes down and leaves the property, the old posts and concrete come out, new posts go in, and the crew frames the fence, pickets it and walks it with you.
Free estimate
Get your estimate from the largest fence company in Texas
Tell us what you need and where the fence goes, and a salesperson will come out and measure the line before anyone writes a number. You get the picket grade and the total in writing, the visit costs nothing, and there is nothing to sign.