Same fence, different ending
Walk any North Texas neighborhood and you'll find two fences that look the same on the day they were built. Give it a few summers, One is still tight, plumb and square. The other is leaning, sagging between the posts, and grey on the sunny side with warped pickets.
The difference isn't the weather, and it usually isn't the wood. It's a set of decisions somebody made before the first post hole got dug.
It starts below the ground
A fence lives or dies under the dirt. A post set shallow, or dropped in loose fill and left to settle, will move — and once one post moves, every runner fastened to it moves with it. No bracket, strap or screw pulls a line that has already gone soft back to straight.
That's why the layout and the digging get more time than people expect. Lines get checked twice, holes get set deep and plumb, and nothing gets hung until the posts are exactly where they belong. We don't use low quality cement to save a few dollars. It's slower, and it's the part you'll never see — which is the point.
Steel posts, true 2x4 Western Red Cedar runners
We set .095 galvanized steel posts and run true 2x4 Western Red Cedar horizontally between them every 6' apart. A steel post doesn't rot, split or hollow out where a wood post gives way, and it doesn't shrink the way a wood post does as it dries.
And a true 2x4 is actually a 2x4 — not a thinner board sold under the same name and different species of wood. That's the difference between a fence that holds its line and one that starts to sag and gap the first year in Texas.
Four runners, a cap and baseboard
A Texas Elite fence runs four Western Red Cedar runners per section on an 8' fence and finishes the top with a 2" thick cedar cap board and pressure treated baseboard to protect your pickets. Where privacy is called for, square-grid wire mesh goes up behind the runners so the fence holds its line instead of flexing into it.
The cap board isn't decoration. It sheds water off the tops of the runners instead of letting it sit and soak in as well as protect the top of the posts— the single fastest way cedar starts to check and split.
The part nobody looks at
Hardware is the quiet one. Plain fasteners driven into end grain work loose as the wood swells and shrinks, and rust stains the front of a fence long before it fails it. Corrosion-resistant hardware, fastened where the load actually is, costs almost nothing on the front end and saves a repair call later.
Same goes for the stain. Cedar doesn't rot its way out of a Texas yard — it dries and greys. A premiun stain slows that down and keeps the color you paid for, and a fence that gets sealed early is a fence that stays sealed. Most competitors are using the lowest cost stain, our supplier takes great pride in their rich, heavy oil based stain that stands the test of time!
Who's standing behind it
This is the piece people forget to ask about. A fence is a promise about the next ten years, not the afternoon it gets built.
We're family owned and operated, the crew brings over 40 years of combined experience, and every fence carries a lifetime workmanship warranty. If something we built isn't right, we come back and fix it simple as that. That's the whole reason we can be this particular about post depth, level and gates built properly — we're the ones who have to answer for them.
What to ask before you sign anything
You don't need to become a fence expert to hire one. These five questions will tell you most of what you need to know about whoever's bidding your job:
- Are the posts steel or wood, and how are they set? Distance and depth?
- Are the runners true 2x4s, or thinner boards sold as 2x4s?
- Who does the work — your crew, or a subcontractor?
- What exactly is covered after the job is finished?
- What type of wood will you be using?