Your All-in-One Guide on How to Maintain Your Fence Effectively
With your fence not just enhancing the look of your property but also providing crucial security and privacy, keeping it maintained properly is essential. Neglecting your fence can cause wear and tear to grow and become larger issues causing your fence to lose some of those vital qualities and deal with costly repairs in the future. To give you peace of mind that your fence will stay strong throughout the year, ensuring that both reactive and proactive maintenance is taken is vital. To help you with your maintenance this guide will go over various methods you can use to care for your fencing, so your fence is not neglected.
Regular Inspections
A must that determines the type of maintenance you would carry out is regular inspections. By finding early indicators of damage you can sort out these issues before they develop into something bigger and more costly to fix. The main indicators to look for are:
- Rot: This is primarily for wooden fences, with how they are prone to develop rot, especially when in damp conditions. To find this rot check your fence for any soft, discoloured or crumbling wood, which would indicate rot build-up.
- Rust: Found mainly in metal fences, these are once again found primarily in fences exposed to a lot of moisture. With rust being easily spotted through orange, rough patches on your fencing.
- General Wear and Tear: This is across all types of fences and for all parts of the fence. So, make sure to check the posts, panels and hinges for any loose fittings, cracks or signs of instability.
- Other Damage: This can range from leaning sections to insect infestations to any signs of stress caused by harsh weather, with these needing to be addressed ASAP.
With a check every month saving you not just time and money but stress in the long run by making it so only small repairs are needed like replacing loose nails or reapplying paint, preventing larger issues from popping up in the future.
Cleaning Methods
As with anything you may own if you can keep your fence clean it will help stop the build-up of mould, mildew and dirt that would all contribute to a weakened structure. To help you with this cleaning here a just a few methods you can use.
- Gentle Washing: This can be done either using a brush or gentle use of a garden hose. Stay clear of any pressure washers when doing this as they can cause serious damage to your fence when used.
- Fence Care Products: Using fence cleaner or a mild detergent is a good way to remove any stubborn stains, algae or mildew that might appear on your fence.
- Scrubbing and Rinsing: If your fence is affected by mould what you can use is a solution of water and white vinegar to scrub the mould-infected areas, and then after rinsing thoroughly it should deal with the mould.
Consistent cleaning, especially after wet periods of time, is crucial to prolonging the lifespan of your fence and we hope these tips help with that cleaning.
Waterproofing Your Fence
Essential to keep the longevity of your fence, waterproofing is crucial for all types of fencing to stop the occurrence of issues that have been mentioned earlier, like rot, rust or general wear and tear. To tackle this here are a few waterproofing methods:
- Sealing: Using a waterproof sealant you can create a protective barrier for your fence against moisture.
- Painting: A fresh coat of paint not only reinvigorates the style of your fence but also helps protect your fence against both rain and UV damage. However, do note this is down to the type of paint you use so make sure to read the label.
- Staining: Enhancing the natural beauty of your fence, alongside delivering long-lasting protection, wood staining is ideal for wood fences, as it adds another protective layer while keeping the look intact.
Ensure that you have the correct waterproofing products for your fence as this can change from fence to fence. Check out our range of products to see if the correct waterproofing product is there for you.
Seasonal Care
The type of care you would want to do does depend on the season you are doing it in, primarily the summer and winter periods, for these tips please do look at two of our other blogs going more in-depth about how to take care of your fence during these seasons:
Conclusion
Fence maintenance as shown throughout this guide, while having some reactive elements is more about being proactive in your care and implementing measures to prevent issues from occurring rather than fixing issues themselves. Through keeping it clean, continuous maintenance and waterproofing you can easily extend the lifespan of your fence and keep it secure and stylish for longer.
If you do have any issues that do need to be taken care of and are not able to deal with them yourselves or are unsure how to tackle them get in contact with our team of experts today, who would be glad to help you.
