Fence Styles: Privacy, Picket and Rail Fences
Most wood fences are one of three kinds: privacy fences with boards close together, picket fences with spaced boards, and rail fences with no boards at all. The style decides how many boards and rails you buy, so pick it before you count materials.
Privacy fences
Boards set edge to edge (or overlapping) so there is no clear view through. They are usually 6 ft tall, sometimes up to 8 ft where local rules allow.
- Solid board
- Boards butted tight against each other on one side of the rails. Simple and fully private, but the good side faces only one way.
- Shadowbox (board on board)
- Boards alternate from one side of the rails to the other and overlap slightly, so it looks the same from both sides and lets wind through.
- Stockade
- Narrow boards with pointed tops set tight together, often sold as ready-made panels.
- Framed
- Boards set inside a frame of trim along the top, bottom and posts, for a finished, furniture-like look.
- Board tops
- Privacy boards can be cut square, with clipped corners (dog-ear), pointed (gothic or angled), or with the top of each section curved up (arched) or down (scalloped).
Picket fences
Spaced boards on two or three rails, usually 3–4 ft tall, to mark a boundary or keep pets in without blocking the view.
- Common picket
- Evenly spaced pickets with a square or clipped top.
- Pointed pickets
- Tops cut to a point (angled) or a spade-like point (gothic).
- Arched or scalloped
- Picket heights follow a curve along each section.
Rail fences
Horizontal rails between posts with no boards, for farms, large lots and driveways; wire mesh is often added to keep animals in.
- Split rail
- Rough rails set into holes mortised through the posts; two, three or four rails high.
- Board (estate) fence
- Sawn boards fixed to the face of the posts, often painted, again two to four rails high.
How the style changes the materials
- Board spacing sets the picket count: no gap for a solid privacy fence, and roughly a board’s width for a picket fence.
- A shadowbox fence needs more boards than a solid one of the same length, because the boards overlap.
- Taller fences need more rails: about one for every 2 ft of height, and never fewer than two.
- Posts are usually 6–8 ft apart for wood, and are set about a third of the fence’s height into the ground.
The fence calculator counts posts, rails and pickets for any spacing; the post hole concrete calculator and the fence stain calculator cover setting and finishing, and the vinyl fence calculator counts panels and posts for vinyl.
Before building, check your local rules on height, setbacks and which side faces your neighbor, and call before you dig.