Lets start with the plinth boards.
We have all seen them......those bulging bits of timber under a paling fence. If you are like me and love tidy lines you will cringe at this. (Picture below)
At Wyndham Fencing we highly recommend adding sleepers to your fence. They not only look better aesthetically but because of their added thickness they will hold their shape better.
Here is a fence with sleepers. The end product looks great. With extra thickness our client was thrilled. Her old fence had plinth boards underneath, that had rotted, warped and broken, allowing her soil to disappear into the block behind.
**Please note we do not recommend nor endorse using sleepers or plinth boards as a garden retainer.
Rails
How your rails are attached to the fence is another import area that impacts on the strength of your fence. All our posts are notched out so the railings fit snuggly into them. This means less gap between the palings and the post.
If you think about carrying a heavy box, and you carry it an arms length away from your body. Its hard, and the strain on your back is painful. Now carry that same box, close to your body, its no longer as hard or as heavy. The same principle applies to our fences. By notching the posts and tucking the rails in tight, and the palings applied to the rails, we are keeping everything in close with less gap meaning that less strain is put on the post and rails. Therefore making the fence more streamline with less stress points. (Picture Below)
The picture below shows a fence made with the railings just nailed to the post on the outside, and then the palings attached to the railing. Just imaging how much weight/stress is on those nails on the post. So which fence do you think will last longer?
While this still works and many fences are still built like this. We don't. We want you to have the strongest build we can possibly do. So all our fences are set in concrete, and our timber fences are all notched for strength and durability.
If you have any questions, just give us a call or drop us a line. We are only too happy to help.
Wyndham Fencing.