A tall featheredge fence enclosing a garden, with a mulched border, a garden shed and more fencing visible beyond

Fencing & Gates

Fencing and gates across Devon, with posts set properly and timber that stands up to weather coming off the moor.

Where it goes wrong

Fences fail in one place

Walk past any tired fence and look at the bottom of the posts. That is where it went. Not the panels, not the fixings. The few inches of post at ground level where wet soil meets timber.

Everything above can be in perfect condition and the fence still leans, because the only part carrying real load has softened.

A fence is mostly a groundwork job. What you see is panels. What you are paying for is what holds them up.

Worth knowing

How tall can I go?

Generally two metres, or one metre alongside a road or footpath. Individual properties can have restrictions, so we check yours before work starts.

Whose fence is it?

Check your deeds before replacing a boundary. It may not be yours.

What makes one last?

Pressure treated timber, posts set to drain, and a gravel board.

Timber

Pressure treated, not dipped

Dip treated

The timber is passed through a bath of preservative that coats the surface and penetrates barely at all. Cut into it and the inside is bare wood. It is what most cheap fencing is, and it is why cheap fencing looks tired in four or five years.

Pressure treated

The timber goes into a sealed vessel and preservative is forced deep into the grain under pressure. It costs more per panel. It is what we fit as standard, because the treatment is the part you cannot add later.

Wind

A fence is a sail

The force does not stop at the panel.

Wind meets the solid face. The rails and the posts have to carry that push down into the ground.

Wind at the faceWhere the load goesAt ground level

The panel catches the wind. A solid face gives the air nowhere to go, so it piles against the boards and spills over the top. That push has to be carried by something.

Follow it down. The boards hand their load to the rails, the rails hand it to the posts, and the posts hand it to the ground. Each stage carries more than the one before it.

This is where it all ends up. Everything the panel caught arrives at the few inches of post at ground level, spreads into the ground through the footing, and stops. It is also where wet soil meets timber, which is why fences fail here: concrete finished sloping away sheds the rain and drainage underneath lets it go, instead of the post standing in a bucket.

Conceptual force and support study. Illustration only, not a wind simulation or construction detail. No dimensions or calculated loads are shown.

This matters more here than in most of the country. We get weather off the moor and off the Atlantic, and a tall close board fence presents a flat face to all of it.

Wind does not go round a solid fence. It goes over, and it pushes hard on the way.

That is why the fences that come down in a gale are almost always the tall solid ones, and why they usually come down as a whole run rather than a panel.

Slatted and hit and miss fencing lets air through. It costs more per metre and it stays up. On an exposed boundary it is not a style choice, it is the reason the fence is still there next winter.

Posts

Set to drain, not set in a bucket

The load the wind puts into a fence has to end somewhere, and it ends in the few inches of post at ground level. That is where tired fences went, and it is almost always water that put them there.

Where the load meets the ground

The last few inches decide it.

Everything above can be in perfect condition and the fence still leans. Compare a post set to drain with one set in a bucket.

Set to drainSloped collar, stone beneathSet in a bucketFlat collar, water sits on it

Four components, and every one of them is there to keep water away from the timber at ground level. Choose one.

Rain runs down the post. The flat collar holds it, where it cannot drain away.

The water never leaves. Timber meets concrete on this line, and it stays wet.

The timber softens. It loses its section on that line only. Everything above is sound.

The wind arrives. A solid fence is a sail. The panel hands the push to the rails.

It all arrives here. Rails to post, post to ground — onto the one soft part.

The post breaks. It crushes on one side, tears on the other, and the fence goes with it.

Pressure treated post

The timber that carries everything.

Preservative forced deep into the grain under pressure, rather than a coat brushed over the outside. It is the part you cannot add later.

Gravel board

A strip that rots so the panel does not.

A sacrificial strip between the panel and the wet ground. Rot attacks the board instead, and a board is cheap and takes minutes to swap.

Concrete, finished to shed

Sloped away from the timber.

The top is finished falling away from the post, so rain runs off it instead of collecting in the one place it must not — where timber meets concrete.

Drainage beneath

A way out for the water.

Free-draining stone under the post, so water that does get down there can leave instead of standing against the timber.

Set to drain. The concrete is finished falling away from the timber and there is free-draining stone beneath, so water leaves instead of standing against the post. It takes a few extra minutes per post and it adds years.

Set in a bucket. A flat collar of concrete holds water exactly where timber meets concrete. The post rots outward from that line, and everything above it is still in perfect condition when the fence goes.

Conceptual section. Illustration only, not to scale and not a construction detail. The sequence shown is one common failure mode, drawn to explain the order it happens in — not a prediction of how any particular fence will behave, and no loads, depths, timescales or deflections are claimed.

Concrete posts sidestep the problem entirely, at some cost to how the fence looks. Timber posts look better and have to be done properly. We will tell you which we would use on your fence and why.

Gravel boards

Keeping the panel off the ground

A gravel board is a sacrificial strip along the bottom of the fence, sitting between the panel and the wet ground.

The point is that rot attacks the board instead of the panel. A board is cheap and takes minutes to swap. A panel is neither. Concrete gravel boards take it further and do not rot at all.

It is a small detail that decides whether you are replacing a strip in ten years or the whole fence.

Gates

Gates are heavier than they look

A gate hangs. Every part of it is under load all day from two or three hinges, and every time someone leans on it or the wind catches it, that load goes into the post.

So gate posts are a different job to fence posts. Bigger section, set deeper, more concrete.

A gate post that shifts half an inch is a gate that drags on the ground, then catches, then eventually will not close.

Field gates, side gates, driveway gates and matching gates built into a run of fencing.

The rules

Height and boundaries

Two things worth knowing before you plan anything.

Height. Two metres is generally the limit without planning permission, dropping to one metre where the fence runs alongside a road or footpath. Individual properties can have restrictions, so we check yours before work starts.

Ownership. It is worth checking your deeds before replacing a boundary fence, because it may not be yours to replace.

Neighbours tend to take it better when they are asked first, and it costs nothing to look.

What it costs

No price list, and here is why

Fencing prices turn on things you cannot see from a photograph. What the ground is like where the posts go.

Whether there is an old fence and old concrete to dig out. How exposed the boundary is, and whether that changes what should go up.

So we come and look, at no charge and with no obligation. You get a written quote with the work set out and a price that does not move.

Want a price for your garden?

We come out, look at the space and give you a written quote. No charge and no obligation.

Get a free quote

Peace of mind

Guaranteed work

Our workmanship is guaranteed, with the terms set out in writing in your quote before anything starts. Materials carry their own manufacturer guarantees and we pass those on to you in full.

Where we work

Okehampton and across Devon

We work from Okehampton out towards Crediton, Exeter, Exmouth and the Exe valley. If you are not sure whether you are in range, just ask.

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