Fence Ledger guide
The whole job in order, with the decisions that are hard to undo marked out from the ones you can change your mind about.
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Two things get done before a single hole is dug, and both are the kind of mistake that cannot be fixed by working harder afterwards.
The first is knowing where your boundary actually runs. A deed, a plat map or a county assessor record will give you the dimensions; a survey will give you the pins. Fences built a foot inside the line waste land, and fences built a foot over it get torn out at your expense — sometimes years later when the neighbour sells.
The second is knowing what is buried. In the United States, calling 811 is free and gets utilities marked before you dig. Post holes are two and a half feet deep and land exactly where service lines like to run. This is the single most important step on this page and it costs nothing but a phone call and a few days of waiting.
The order matters. Gates force post positions, and posts define everything after them, so working backwards from the fence line to the gates produces posts in the wrong places.
Run a string line between the two end points and pull it tight. Mark where each gate goes first — where you actually walk, where the mower comes out, where a trailer needs to reverse in. Then lay out post positions from those fixed points rather than from the ends.
Eight-foot centres are the residential default for a practical reason: rail stock is commonly sold in eight-foot lengths, so one rail spans exactly one section from post centre to post centre with nothing to cut and nothing to join. Closer spacing sags less and costs more; wider spacing means joining rails mid-span, which is weaker.
This is most of the work and most of the cost. On a 150 ft fence it is around twenty holes, each roughly 10 in across and 30 in deep — though the depth that actually governs is your local frost line and your local code, not a number from a website.
Hire or rent a powered auger unless the run is very short. A post hole digger works and will take you a weekend and your shoulders.
Put four to six inches of gravel in the bottom of each hole before the post. It drains, which keeps the post end out of standing water, and it reduces the concrete you need because it occupies the bottom of the hole.
Set each post plumb, brace it, and leave it. Bracing every post and coming back the next day is the normal rhythm; building the whole fence in one continuous session is how posts end up out of line. Crown the concrete slightly above grade so water runs away from the post rather than pooling against it.
Rails span post to post and carry the pickets. A four-foot fence usually takes two, a six-foot fence three, an eight-foot fence four. The rule is about supporting the picket along its length rather than about strength at the post.
Fix rails with the fence line, not with the ground. On sloping ground you either step the fence — each section level, with a small drop at each post — or rack it, following the slope. Stepping looks deliberate and wastes picket length at each step; racking follows the ground and needs panels that can flex.
Pickets go on last and go fast. Leave a small gap between boards, around a quarter inch: pressure-treated lumber arrives wet and shrinks as it dries, and boards butted tight can cup or push each other out of line. Leave an inch or two of clearance underneath so the boards are not wicking moisture out of wet soil.
Check plumb every few boards rather than at the end. A fence drifts a fraction per picket and the drift is invisible until it is thirty boards of drift.
Almost every expensive mistake on a fence falls into one of four categories.
For a competent amateur on a straightforward 150 ft run: a day to lay out and dig, a day to set posts, a day for rails and pickets once the concrete has cured. Add a day for anything unusual — slope, rock, a gate that has to swing over a driveway.
Professionals do it faster because they have an auger, a crew and no learning curve. Published national figures put labour at roughly half the cost of an installed wood fence, which is why doing it yourself saves so much on paper — and why it is a genuine amount of digging in practice.