For anyone with a wooden fence, here is how to keep it safe during winter.
We’re now in December, and the unforgiving cold of winter is starting to take a hold on our properties. Winter weather can be brutal, especially on wooden surfaces. If you have a wood fence, for example, you need to take measures to protect it during the winter season. For anyone with a wooden fence, here is how to keep it safe during winter.
Keep Your Wooden Fence Sealed and Clean
For a lot of people, they will turn to wooden fences rather than another kind of fencing because of the beauty that wood offers. Unfortunately, wood is vulnerable to moisture, and winter brings a lot of it.
Not only does winter bring rain and snow, both of which bring a lot of moisture, but the water itself undergoes changes. Fluctuations in temperature cause water to contract and expand as the water freezes and melts. Eventually, with enough repetition, freeze-thaw cycles will create gaps in your wood and even cause existing gaps to grow larger.
By keeping your wooden fence cleaned and sealed, you protect it from moisture and, subsequently, the effects of freeze-thaw cycles. Sealing a fence also protects it against mold and mildew.
Trim Any Back Foliage You Have
Even though this doesn’t focus on your fence directly, trimming your nearby foliage can be a great way to preserve your wooden fence. You don’t want branches falling onto your fence to cause any damage, and the problem with winter is that snow can pile on the branches of your trees. With enough snow, the weight will become too much, causing branches to snap off and fall. By trimming your branches back, you keep foliage farther away from your fencing, which keeps your fence safer overall.
Address Leaning Fence Posts
All wooden fence posts should get installed no fewer than 36 inches into the ground. This puts your posts underneath the frost line, and it’s at this depth that it will be difficult to make your fence posts lean or move at all.
In winter, however, due to the freeze-thaw cycles that tend to happen, water buried underground will cause soil to shift, meaning your fence posts are more prone to being moved. This is when you need to contact a professional fencing company to help put your fence posts back where they need to go.
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