Wood Fence Designs: Split Rail Fence

Use A Split Fail Fence For Your Field

A split rail fence is one of the most common wood fence designs and is generally used for agricultural purposes, although on occasion it is used as decorative garden fencing. It is generally use in the countryside and it is the most suitable wood fence for horse fencing, farms and fields and possibly, the garden fence of country houses. It is seldom used in towns. The most common of this type of wood fence design uses timber logs ‘split’ lengthwise to form ‘rails’, hence the name split rail fence. Although you still need to know how to build a wood fence it has a simplicity of design and ease of assembly, needing only a handful of elementary tools.

The rails are stacked on top of each other, either straight or in zigzag fashion, this is called a worm fence, and vertical fence posts are used to secure them. Because of this, split rail fences are also known as ‘post and rail fences’. The suppliers offer separate end posts, corner posts and line posts with holes made halfway, two holes on adjoining sides and through single hole respectively. Most split rail fences have two horizontal rails, though some suppliers offer three or four if that is what the customer wants.

Wood Fence Designs

Wood Fence Designs

It is not too difficult to build. Wood fence posts are put vertically into holes in the ground and either tamped firmly in or sometimes fixed with  concrete. The fence posts are made from specially treated wood to help preserve them and to discourage attack from termites and other insects and molds. They can be weather proofed for use in areas prone to high rainfall and moisture.

The holes in the vertical posts are predrilled by the fence companies  before being supplied and if you are good at building wood fences you can either do the fence installation yourself or ask a professional to do it for you. The fencing supplies personnel might offer installation as an option. This type of wood fence conventionally does not use nails, although some people prefer to use them and it is particularly suitable for hard and rocky terrain.

However, this wood fence design is expensive as it uses a lot of wood.  The most common timber used in the construction of the split rail fence is American chestnut or chestnut blight, but cedar is growing in popularity.

 

Wood Fence Designs: Picket Fences

Want A Pretty Fence? Choose A Picket Fence

Of the many wood fence designs that are available to choose from, one of the prettiest is a picket fence. It is a style of wood fence that is particularly suitable for a cottage style home and garden and it has many advantages.

To begin with it is quite low in height, so if the fence design you are looking for is a privacy fence design it is not the right one for you, but it does allow the sun and the light through so it is good for plants and flowers. It is a romantic looking fence design and evocative of the typical English country garden, especially when it is a white picket fence and has a little wood fence gate.

Wood Fence Designs

Wood Fence Designs

Because it is not very high it is one of the very friendly wood fence designs and it makes it easy to get to know the neighbors. Conversations over the garden fence can happen spontaneously and without any kind of artificiality. Of course, this can have a downside too – it is very difficult, with a picket fence design, to avoid speaking to your neighbors! You can also easily see who is passing by and who is coming up to your front door to visit, which is good.

You need to know how to build a fence and a picket fence is constructed in a particular way. Supporting fence posts, which can have a shaped top to match the pickets, are fixed into the ground at quite large intervals and the ‘pickets’, upright pieces of wood, are held parallel with horizontal bars at the top and also at the bottom. The pickets can be quite plain or have a shaped top and there are many different picket fence designs depending on individual taste. They can be of varying heights – also within an individual fence if it is custom made – and it is possible to make the fence so that it will look the same from both sides.

While a wood picket fence is the traditional way of making these particular wood fence designs it is not the only option. Vinyl fencing has become popular and widespread and it has a lot going for it. It does not need to be looked after in the same way as it is impervious to the weather; it does not need annual painting and it is less likely to rot. Unless you get up quite close to them it is difficult to tell the difference between a wood picket fence and a vinyl fence.