This One Fence Mistake Guarantees Sagging

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:01]Now, when it comes to wood fence, don't mess this up because your fence is going to fail. Let me show you something.

[00:00:07]So, here we have a cedar 2 by 4.

[00:00:10]Now, I'm going to show you the right way to do this and the wrong way to do this.

[00:00:14]We're going to pull from one side of this post and we're going to measure to this side.

[00:00:19]That's going to give us a center to center measurement on these two posts.

[00:00:23]And I already know what you're thinking.

[00:00:25]You guys don't use wood posts, you say.

[00:00:26]You're right, we don't. But we still teach how to do wood posts because there's a lot of people that still use wood posts. I'm going to go ahead and stack all of them.

[00:00:36]So, these are perfectly aligned on this side.

[00:00:40]I'm going to set my circular saw all the way down. So, that way I'm cutting through the first 2 by 4 and I'm cutting into that second one. So, my line is just going from one to the next to the next.

[00:00:55]I could find center on my post.

[00:00:57]Since I have cedar, I'm going to use stainless steel screws. It's something that's not going to react with the tannic acid in the cedar and cause all those black streaks.

[00:01:06]We're just going to guess uh let's go 27.

[00:01:11]And this is literally for training purposes. So, my heights could be wrong.

[00:01:16]If you had a hard time trying to hold up your 2 by 4s, you could take another screw.

[00:01:21]That screw is going to hold that 2 by 4 for me.

[00:01:26]And the screws that I'm using, I got an inch and a half of the screw in the rail and an inch and a half of the screw into the post. Make sure that you're using long enough screws.

[00:01:36]What you would want is you would want equal spaces here. So, you'd want equal space, equal space, and then [music] just a little bit here. In other videos, we've demonstrated that. Now, the first little secret to getting this right is how many rails we used. Now, let's say that you don't want to use three rails and you just want to use two. You want to use a top and you want to use a bottom. Are you going to run into problems? Yes, you are. Not right off the bat, but you're going to see them here within a week. This cedar stringer is relatively important. For strength, yes, but this one is controlling the warping of those pickets. Now, I want you to notice the next big thing that we got right. This is huge. These rails, they are solid.

[00:02:15]You're going to have a nice, solid fence. These rails are plenty strong.

[00:02:20]It's holding my weight, no problem. And I weigh more than the section of the fence is going to weigh.

[00:02:26]That's why they don't use rough-cut lumber in gymnastics.

[00:02:30]Now, I'm going to show you where people tend to go wrong.

[00:02:34]This way feels intuitive to people, but I'm going to show you how even though it looks right, it's a terrible idea.

[00:02:47]Now, be honest. Doesn't this look like it just makes sense?

[00:02:55]And you can certainly have a third rail this way, but we just didn't do it.

[00:02:58]Because typically, when I see this method, I don't see a third rail.

[00:03:04]Let's just start from that. Do you see how that rail is bowing?

[00:03:12]Okay, I went and found another cedar stringer, and I found one that's old, cracked out, and not nearly as good a shape as this one that's on the bottom.

[00:03:20]I'm going to show you the differences between these two, just the positions that you put them in. As you can see, I can stand on this. I can't get nearly the sag in this rail as I was getting on the rail that is right above my feet.

[00:03:34]In a In a resting position, we're at 6 in. inches.

[00:03:39]When I'm on it, we already lost an inch. Now, that's only 160 lb.

[00:03:45]If you build your fence this way, over time, even though they might be straight now, these rails are going to droop.

[00:03:52]Because this is not the structural position that this cedar stringer is supposed to be put in. Think of a truss.

[00:03:58]They work in this direction. We don't build trusses this way because it's not structural. Other than the post, the cedar stringers or the 2x4s are really the meat and potatoes of your fence. So, the next time or even this weekend when you go to build your wood fence, you make sure and put your rails the proper way. Because if you don't, you're going to wish you had. You're going to have a lot of sag afterwards. I stand with us to be I. We are Wyoming's fence company. We hope you have a good dang day.