Fence Board Replacement

Before replacing boards, push the fence at the top. If it moves at the ground, the problem is posts, not boards — new boards on rotten posts go over with everything else in the next storm. If the rails sag between posts or pull away at the ends, those go first too. Boards are the last layer, not the first.

Peninsula fence boards mostly fail three ways: at the bottom edge, where they wick moisture from soil and plantings touching the fence; at the nails, where boards split and work loose as the wood cycles between wet winters and bone-dry summers; and by cupping and warping, when one face weathers faster than the other. Isolated failures are normal aging. Whole runs failing at the bottom edge usually means soil or mulch piled against the fence — fix that, or the new boards go the same way.

New boards next to twenty-year-old ones will not match on day one — nothing makes new redwood look weathered except weather. Within a season the color difference fades substantially; a coat of stain across the repaired section evens it out immediately if the mismatch matters. What is matched precisely: board width, spacing, height line, and nail pattern, so the repair reads as maintenance, not a patch.

Fence board replacement by town: Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Mountain View, plus the Peninsula towns on the service-area list.

Matching is the whole difficulty here: a new board next to a weathered run reads as a patch until it greys, and that takes seasons.

Photograph the damaged boards straight-on, plus one shot down the fence line. Count is what drives price, and photos give an accurate count.