Taylorsville has a lot of houses built decades ago, and many of them are on their second or third fence. That makes the question here less about what to build and more…
Taylorsville has a lot of houses built decades ago, and many of them are on their second or third fence. That makes the question here less about what to build and more about whether to build at all this year. One leaning section, a few cracked pickets, or a gate that has stopped latching is a repair. If the posts are sound, the rails are solid, and the damage is confined to a stretch you can point at, patching it is not a compromise. It is the correct call, and a contractor who reaches straight for a full replacement should be asked to explain why.
The test is almost always the posts, because posts are the part you cannot change without disturbing everything attached to them. Push on one near the top. If it moves in the ground rather than flexing, the setting is failing or the wood has rotted at grade, where moisture sits. Do that along the whole run before deciding anything. If two posts out of twenty move, you have a repair. If half of them move, you are only deciding how long to spread a replacement out. Nobody enjoys hearing that, but finding out in stages costs more than knowing early.
Wood tells you when it is done if you look in the right places. Check the base of the posts, the underside of the bottom rail, and anywhere a sprinkler has been hitting the same spot for years. Gray surface weathering is cosmetic and does not mean much. Softness you can sink a screwdriver into is structural and means quite a lot. Rails pulling away from posts, pickets splitting at the fasteners along the entire length, and a fence that reads wavy when you sight down it all point to a run that is tired rather than damaged. New pickets on old bones only postpone the same conversation.
Vinyl and chain link age along different paths. Vinyl gets brittle with long UV exposure and tends to crack rather than rot, often at fastener points or after a cold snap plus an impact. Chain link gives up at the fabric, at the top rail joints, and along the bottom where it has been pushed and pulled. Aluminum mostly survives while its fasteners and gate hardware wear out. In every case the same rule holds. If the posts and frame are still good you are repairing, and if the frame is going, replacing it now costs less than paying for the job twice.
You do not have to redo the whole yard at once. Plenty of Salt Lake County homeowners replace the run that is failing now and leave the others until they fail too. That works best when you plan for it. Choose a material and style you can still buy in a few years, keep post spacing consistent so future sections line up, and end the new work at a corner or a gate so the transition reads as intentional rather than abandoned. Decide early whether you are trying to match the old fence or accepting that new work is going to look new, because it will.
Phasing has one catch worth knowing about. Shared boundary runs involve a neighbor, and neighbors keep their own timelines, so the section along your side yard may be easy to schedule while the back line waits on somebody else's decision. Start those conversations before you commit to an order. Confirm current height and material rules with the city as well, even when you are replacing something that has stood for decades, because what was allowed when the original fence went up is not necessarily what is allowed now. Rules vary and change, and a phone call is cheaper than a correction.
Look at the posts. If most are still firm in the ground and solid at grade, repairing sections is money well spent and can keep a fence going a long while. If the posts rock when you push them, or the wood is soft at the base along much of the run, repairs turn into a series of small bills that add up to a replacement anyway. Rails and pickets are the cheap part of a fence. The posts are the actual decision.
Structurally, usually. Visually, not exactly. New wood will not match weathered wood until it has had a few seasons of sun on it, and stain narrows the gap without erasing it. Vinyl and aluminum colors shift slightly under UV exposure too, so a new panel beside an old one reads a little different. If matching matters to you, replacing a full run tends to look better than dropping one fresh panel into the middle of an old one.
Grab each post near the top and push. A good post flexes a little while the ground stays put. A failing one rocks in its hole. Then check at grade, where moisture collects, by pressing a screwdriver into the wood. If it sinks in with light pressure, that post is finished no matter how sound the rest of it looks. Do this along the entire line before deciding anything, because posts rarely fail one at a time.
Cedar or treated pine, built board by board on site, which is why wood follows a slope and an odd corner better than anything else. It moves with the seasons, it takes stain, and it wants that attention on a schedule.
Learn more →Vinyl keeps its color and never asks for a stain rag, which is most of the appeal. The real questions are how the posts are set and how much wind those solid panels are going to catch out where you are putting them.
Learn more →Ornamental aluminum and steel where you want a boundary you can see through, chain link where you want dogs contained and a back line marked. Both let wind pass instead of fighting it, which matters on an exposed lot.
Learn more →Gates are the moving part, and moving parts are what fail. Width, post size, hinges, latch type and whether that post was set to carry a swinging load are what separate a gate that closes from one you lift.
Learn more →Leaning posts, wind-broken panels, a section a falling limb took out, a gate that quit latching. Sometimes a whole run has to come down and sometimes four posts are the entire problem, and those are very different jobs.
Learn more →Get quotes from contractors who set posts properly. No fee to be matched.
Call 801-823-6018A few details about the yard is all we need to route it correctly.