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Keep Your Fence Looking New

Wood fences are beautiful and help in the protection of your family and pets. They help a family feel safe and secure as they play in the backyard be it in the summer or winter. With the different seasons though there is a lot of weather related wear and tear that fences go through. It may not look that way after a year or two because the changes are subtle, but they are definitely there. How can you protect your wood fence and keep it looking as new as the day that it was installed?

Stain it!

Many of the wood fences nowadays are chemically treated to withstand the elements that the seasons bring on. This treatment doesn’t last forever though. It will wear off as time goes on. Make it somewhat of a family tradition to paint your fence annually. It can be either with a medium to dark stain or paint. Depending on what stain and paint you choose it will vary how often you’ll need to reapply it, be it every year or every couple of years. Along with this you’ll want to take note of how many coats you need to put on per the instructions.

Clean it!

When you see that the paint or stain is wearing off or that your fence is starting to gray then it’s time to clean it. Before you put a new coat of stain or paint on your fence it’s important to clean it with a power washer. This not only makes it look new again, but it takes off the old outer layer that is damaged. This helps to continue to preserve your wood by removing the damaged layer and not letting it go further down into the wood. Then once it has been cleaned and dried you’ll want to apply the stain and paint as instructed by the supplier.

Maintain it!

There are many things that go into making a fence healthy. The biggest factor of these is in maintaining it when you see a problem from the start. Many people wait until there is a major problem to do something about it such as when your fence has completely rotted out in certain sections. When they could have been proactive about it by noticing that the sprinkler has been hitting it the same way for the last ten years. Therefore, the solution would have been to adjust the sprinkler head ten years ago to ensure that it wasn’t hitting the fence. It’s all about seeing the problem before it starts. Take note of where water pools and if it’s at a main fence post.

As we know winter isn’t the time to be doing work on your fence because it’s so cold. Taking the time to inspect the fence now and figure what needs to be done will help in a smooth process of it in the spring when you turn your sprinklers back on. A lot of the time in the winter you end up looking out the window while drinking something hot this time while doing so inspect the fence and take note of any discoloration in the wood. Here at Goodwyn Building we want to make sure that you take care of your home and that it is in good working condition. This is an on-going process that can be done year-round. We build homes that are to last a life-time, look at the homes we have available today!

1-24-2018