Wood Fencing: Privacy, Picket and Rail Fences Built on Site

Wood is the default backyard fence here for good reasons. It gives full privacy, it can be built to almost any height and shape, and it follows a sloped yard better than any panel system because every picket is cut and hung on site.

QC Fence Contractors installs new wood fences and replaces old ones across the Charlotte metro. Most are pressure treated pine. Cedar pickets are an option where the look matters more.

The lumber is the same from one wood fence to the next. The picket layout is what you are choosing.

• Dog ear privacy: pickets side by side with clipped top corners, at six or eight feet, plain or with cap and trim.
• Shadowbox: pickets alternate on each side of the rails so air moves through and both faces look finished.
• Board on board: overlapping pickets that leave no gap when the wood shrinks.
• Horizontal: boards run flat between posts, tight for privacy or spaced for semi-privacy.
• Semi-privacy with flat or scalloped tops, and picket fences for front yards.
• Split rail and board fence for larger lots.

Posts fail before pickets do. Red clay holds water against the post at ground level, and that is where rot starts. The treatment level of the post lumber, how the footing sheds water, and whether the fence can dry out after rain matter more than the thickness of the pickets. See pressure treated pine fences for what the treatment ratings mean.

Where ground stays wet, steel posts behind wood pickets take rot out of the picture. New treated pine is wet when it is installed. It shrinks as it dries, so small gaps open between side-by-side pickets in the first season. That is normal, and board on board is the layout that hides it.