hello the fence around my front yard (about 260 ft. total) was
originally built with 4' 4x4's sunk into concrete, at 10 ft. spacing.

at this point (maybe 30 years) most of the pickets are cracked or
broken, and parts of the fence have the 2x4 rails mounted flat rather
than vertical, and many of those have bowed and torn loose from the
posts. there are two rails in each span. the posts are mostly in good shape.

the pickets were 1/4" mat'l, 3 ft high, 1" width. (very lightweight).

so i am planning on fixing things up. two or three posts are wiggling or
out of alignment so i am planning on fixing those.

my big problem is with replacement pickets and rails. i'd like to use
heavier pickets, but 10 ft. seems like a long span (it looks like the
standard is 8 ft.)

so...what should i do? add more posts (dropping the span to 5 ft.) or
actually correct the spacing?

or maybe add a third rail?

what are reasonable limits for the picket size? the pickets are so
lightweight right now (and all broken) i'd like something heavier duty.

also i have read that spacing should be less than 3" because kids tend
to stick their heads through the pickets and get stuck.

thanks...the fence will end up either 3' or 4' tall, somewhere in there.

In article PGKxd.3475$hc7.3392@trnddc06,
Flash wrote:

my big problem is with replacement pickets and rails. i'd like to use
heavier pickets, but 10 ft. seems like a long span (it looks like the
standard is 8 ft.)

so...what should i do? add more posts (dropping the span to 5 ft.) or
actually correct the spacing?

You could put sleepers in between every post. That would give an
effective spacing of 5 foot, but would not involve putting in a
new post an joint every 5 feet. Use a steel post or a small wood
post, and have it pick up the load and keep things in alignment.

-john-

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John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
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