As the owner of a fence, maintenance is absolutely necessary if you plan on keeping it in top shape. Discussed in our recent post, regular maintenance can play a significant role in longevity of your investment. Unfortunately, sometimes we neglect our fences or simply something out of our control causes the build to fall apart. A big part of our business comes from making fence repairs. Our clients often ask us how to avoid these repairs in the future, so we’ve decided today to talk about the most common repairs we get called in for as well as some ways to avoid these problems in your yard.
Warped/Broken Posts
We see this all the time, especially with wood fences. Typically our clients choose to build with 4x4 posts and usually this is an adequate choice in materials. A wood fence is incredibly popular on residential properties and also very resilient if installed properly. When problems arise is after the fence is subject to excess stress. This stress comes in many forms. For example, year after year should you plow or shovel snow up against the fence, it puts a larger amount of weight against it. This causes the posts to lean in the direction it’s being pushed, warping or even breaking in the process. Another common mistake would be hanging a clothesline from the fence. 4x4 wood posts are not meant to constantly support the weight of wet clothing and over time, will warp or break.
If you wish to use the fence as a place to push snow up against, hang a clothesline or to support any other loads, it would be best to have a fence built with 6x6 posts instead. These thicker, stronger posts are far more capable of handling the heavy loads that their lighter counterparts simply cannot.
Sagging Gates
When used for privacy or as a barrier, the fence gate is a very important piece of the project. Over time, gates tend to lose their shape and begin to sag. It’s very displeasing aesthetically and it can become very frustrating to operate the gate. Thankfully, there is a way to build a wood fence gate in such a way as to minimize the vulnerability to sagging and as a result makes for a longer lasting fence. By installing two “crossers” along the panel of the gate, as depicted in the photo on the right, some much-needed support is added.
Heaved Posts
As discussed in a recent post, heaved fence posts are one of the most common repairs that we get calls for. There can be a number of causes such as stress or an improper build, but for the most part it is the result of an improper dig upon installation.
Should you have experienced any of the issues we wrote about today, or any others for that matter; we encourage you to get in touch with our team at Deluxe Fencing and Decks to get expert opinions and repairs so that your fence will be in it for the long haul. Feel free to give us a call at (613) 862-4275 or visit our contact page to send us a detailed message about the issue(s) at hand!
