All wood moves widthwise. It will shrink and expand seasonally. Take a look at it again when the rainy season starts and much of the gap will be gone. Construction grade wood is not dried as much as furniture grade so you will get more shrink originally too.
Pine, fir, cedar, redwood are all used for fences.
Around here, pickets are made from cedar. I have a neighbor who made his fence without permanently affixing the pickets to the rail, by sandwiching the tops and bottoms of pickets between two pieces of wood (think of a tongue and groove).
He installed it this way with the pickets touching, and after they shrunk, he pulled them together and then nailed them in place. No cracks.
Thanks for the suggestion. The first floor is brick. The foundation doesn't show, but it didn't show when the surveyor was there either. (He probably came the first year, but I bought it when it was 4 years old.)
Both lines are at angles to the house but perpendicular to the line they go to. And the fact is that both lines are drawn to go to the farthest line from my house, what must be my property line. One of those property lines is the mid-line of the easement between my building (of 6 homes) and the next building (6 or 8 homes). And the distance I measured matches the distance on the survey.
And the other line is just beyond where people walk and ranges from just before or just beyond where the land goes down a hill into the stream bed. But the distance I measured is the distance to the fence, not the property line, which is 5 feet farther.. The fence wasn't there when the survey was made, but I'm not surprised it's on the survey, since that placing the fence in the right spot was the reason for the survey. The fence was put in by a major fence company around here, still in business after 34 more years. I suppose the guys from the fence company are big boys and the foreman looked at the survey, measured a bit, realized the mistake, and put the fence where it should be, without complaining to anyone.
The problem with all of this is that I'm still fighting with my neighbor in the next building, who still seems to think he owns part of my land, and I had hoped this survey, drawn mostly from the plat, but larger, would convince him.
I guess he won't try to measure the incorrect measurement and he'll never know the number is wrong, but I'm also considering going back to the plat, which is now available from the county on the web, which means it can be enlarged to show only a few houses. And I've learned how to use MSPaint, to make my property line one color (red?), his another (green?) and my other-side n'bor another (blue?) The plat doesn't have these two measurements at all. It doesn't even show where the houses are, or the newly designed-in 30 feet of public sidewalk.
I also a couple years ago called the Title Company I bought insurance from, and they emailed me the plat. Didn't offer to defend me in court, but I suppose I have to ask for that. I hope it won't get that far . Not unless I'm trimming the bushes or mowing the lawn on the small part of my land outside the fence and he calls the police.
Back to the survey, I couldn't read the surveyor's signature, and I couldnt' read his name on his stamp, but I could almost read his surveyor number, and on the website for the agency that licenses surveyors, there were 4 ways to look somoene up, one was by his number, and when I did that, I got it right the first try and the name I got matched what I could see of his name on the seal and signature. He's listed as 65+, retired, and living on the Eastern Shore of Md. About 3 hours from me by car. But I hate to go to him and say, "Is this a mistake you made 33 years ago?"
Having contacted "city hall" is a plus for your side if things get sticky. If you happen to mention that you have contacted city hall it might intimidate him a little bit. Of course, it could also irritate him and things could escalate.
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