[Chief Joseph]

I have seen a sideways fence such as you plan and imho it looks strange and dumb, lol.

[mike]

[Gregory]

That fence is going to blow down this winter.

[Geography Nerd]

I've had good luck with smaller outlets for cedar fence boards. About 15 years ago I put in 50' of fence around my house with boards from Mill Outlet in Tacoma. Even though I haven't sealed them as often as I should they're holding up OK. Had a few (less than 10) that shrunk/warped and I replaced after the first year. One item to note is cedar fence boards at Home Depot are 5 1/2" wide while most local outlets make actual 6" boards. Makes the price difference a tiny bit better.

[Bedivere]

[Chief Joseph]

Don't over-complicate things, it's a fence. Just buy the cheap cedar boards for $2.22 a board and let them rot like everyone else, if built properly it will probably outlast you, maybe treat them once or twice.

[RichardJ]

A light pressure wash and treating with a good stain or sealer once every 6 or 7 years will easily keep them in like new condition for 20+ years. Keeping water, soil, or bark off the base of the posts will help ensure sections of the fence don't blow down on the high wind days. I always use twice as much concrete per post as the contractors for added insurance. Worth it.

[Bedivere]

[Randito]

[mike]

re concrete: Design is most important. More concrete isn't necessarily better. Concrete acts as basin to hold water around the base of the post. Rot city! If you want concrete or the design requires it (see below) better to bed the post in 7/8 drain rock then tamp gravel and pour a collar to stabilize. re design: Most fences fail because all the weight is attached on one side and they lean. You can use a ton of concrete or easier and cheaper, design so the weight is balanced.

[Ski]

[RichardJ]

Bedivere. Since 1982 I bought and lived in 3 new houses and built my own fences (cedar) in all of them. I moved to Maple Valley in 1994 and built the side and backyard fences with some help from the neighbors. I have helped repair other neighbor's fences here and in New Mexico quite a few times after windstorms. I'm no expert at how much concrete is exactly right, but I am sometimes amazed at how little is used by the contractor's work I've seen where the soil is soft and wet more than half the year. I learned to slope the concrete away from the post so water cannot pool. I suppose I use more concrete just as a precaution and it is fairly cheap.

[contour5]

On the last fence I built, I used about 2 bags of readymix per post. Can't remember if they were 60 or 80 pound bags. That was 4x4s in holes aprox 24" deep. Be sure to slope the top of the concrete to direct runoff away from the post... I sorta prefer metal posts- old iron pipe from a salvage yard works fine. Just spray paint it brown, set the posts and then drill and use quarter inch bolts to attach the rails. Then nailgun the uprights on. Pretty much foolproof, easy, and the posts will basically last forever. Nobody will even notice the posts are metal. You could build a box around each one if you wanted to. Not crazy about short metal pipes let into the bottom of 4x4s. I've seen this design fail when water gets in and turns the interior of the posts to mush, and then the whole fence slips down and ends up standing on the dirt. Don't pressure wash your cedar! Fill a garden spray bottle with bleach and TSP. Spray it on, wait half an hour and then rinse it off with a garden hose...

[Steve]

If you have 200 feet of fence line do you have an easy way of transporting 400+ boards? last year I replaced the fencing with my north and south neighbors. I just went with Dunn since their quality is better and the pricing is good and they will deliver. We paid somewhere around $4000 for about 140 feet of fencing including the gates; material only. We did all the labor and based the design similar to this: http://www.alliedfence.com/wp-content/gallery/signature-series-custom-cedar-fences/windsor-052320110001.jpg

[Gregory]

I wrote this because you were talking putting a solid fence up with posts, no concrete.You might get away with it if the fence runs from Canada to California but if it runs from the Cascades to the Olympics, most likely not.Not tart just getting old and have been building houses and such for forty years.