stain backside of cedar fence trim?

In the process of putting up our cedar fence which we are staining with Sikkens Cetol SRD in Teak. Our nice weather for staining is running out really fast around here so I am staining like a maniac today.

The fence is 17 cedar 1x6's per 8 ft section, with 2 2x4's on edge at the back (one at top, one near bottom). There is a cedar 2x4 laying flat on top of the on edge 2x4 at the top. On the front of the fence there will be a 1x4 cedar trim piece right underneath the 2x4 that is laying flat, and a 1x6 cedar trim piece at the bottom. Since the space between our boards is minimal, and thus the chance of seeing any greyed cedar is slim, and that the "uglier" (although neither side of this fence is ugly) side of the fence will be facing back alley and neighbours, is it necessary to stain the backside of these trim boards?

Not staining them would save me alot of time not having to wait for that side to dry before we put them up. We could just put up the trim and I could stain the fronts and edges right up on the fence.

If there is an advantage to staining the backsides, I definately will. If it is a waste of my time, then I'd rather not. Any opinions?

Thanks!

Reply to
blue
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Since the 'ugly' side is usually supposed to face the fence owner's property, you would have to stain it Facing the ugly side to your property may only be a courtesy in your area, but it could be local code. You might want to check on that. It is also important if your fence has a horizontal rail in the middle of the pickets between posts. You don't want to give burglars, or other neer-do-wells, a good foothold to climb the fence.

Reply to
willshak

No code here for which side of fence faces where. The owner next door lives in a different province and has rented out the house for the last

10 years rents. The previous fence was rotten and falling over (and the neighbour never payed for any of it). We asked him if he would like to share the cost of the new fence and we would do all the labour, he refused saying he doesn't care if there is a fence or not since he is just renting the place out. Thus, ugly side goes to them. Well and also because he had a shed a foot and a half on our property on the side where there is 100' of fence, we asked politely for him to move it since we didn't want to give up 150' of property to him by placing the fence 1.5' onto our property. We offered to help move it, gave him several months notice, he said he didn't want to put any effort in since he just rented out the house. We ended spending a day of our time getting the she moved nicely onto his property when we could have spent that time building our fence.

Other neighbour is super nice guy, he offered to pay for half of the fence on his side without us even asking but we told him not to worry since there is less than 30' of fence between our houses. That side we will be alternating sections, ugly side/good side.

Also, the fence design we made looks identical on either side with the exception that one side has the rough side of the cedar fence boards and you see 2x4's for trim instead of a 1x6 and 1x4. We intentionally designed it this way so that if we had to alternate ugly side/good side on both side, it would still look decent for us.

A code saying if you pay for an entire fence and put in all the labour, yet have to have the good side to your neighbour seems absurd to me. What would prompt a neighbour to ever pay for half? And what would you do when both people pay for the fence?

It doesn't.

Any advice on whether the back side of trim needs to be stained for the benefit of the cedar?

Reply to
blue

I do not mean the fence boards, we alreay stained those on both sides. I mean the 1x6 and 1x4 trim pieces where the backside will be horizontally against 17 1x6 cedar boards. On the "ugly" side of the fence there is 2

2x4's whereas on our side, there is the 1x4 and 1x6 trim board instead (fence boards are between the 2x4's and the trim). There is no way anyone would ever see the unstained part of the board, it is physically impossible.

I am only concerned about the staining for the good of the cedar. The fence was designed to look identical on both sides, with the exception of the bad side of the fence boards facing one side. No code in our area saying which side of fence boards need to face where and our neighbour rents the house out and said he doesn't want to pay for any part of the fence since he rents and doesn't care if his tenants have a fence or not.

Reply to
blue

I do not mean the fence boards, we alreay stained those on both sides. I mean the 1x6 and 1x4 trim pieces where the backside will be horizontally against 17 1x6 cedar boards. On the "ugly" side of the fence there is 2

2x4's whereas on our side, there is the 1x4 and 1x6 trim board instead (fence boards are between the 2x4's and the trim). There is no way anyone would ever see the unstained part of the board, it is physically impossible.

I am only concerned about the staining for the good of the cedar. The fence was designed to look identical on both sides, with the exception of the bad side of the fence boards facing one side. From either side, it is a good looking fence. No code in our area saying which side of fence boards need to face where and our the owner of the house next door rents the house out and said he doesn't want to pay for any part of the fence since he rents the house out, plans to for the rest of his life and doesn't care if his tenants have a fence or not.

It doesn't.

Reply to
blue

In theory, all six sides of a board used for fencing should be "stained". In practice, sealing the exposed surfaces with something like Sikkens will be fine. You won't notice the difference in aging of the wood in your design. Remember, you are already using a wood appropriate for outside use. As long as you can live with the aesthetics, you should be fine.

Good Luck.

Reply to
Baron

That is moot where I live. There would be no reason to share the cost since a fence cannot be placed directly on a property line. There is a property line setback for a fence here. When I built my 6' high pool fence some 17 years ago, the setback was 6 inches from the property line (determined by survey). A couple of years ago, my neighbor across the street put a fence up along his property line and the setback at that time had been extended to 3' from the line. My 17 year old cedar fence is falling apart and I want to replace the cedar between the PT posts with new 6' vinyl fencing. I have to check with my building code enforcement officer to see whether I can retain my

6" grandfathered setback status by retaining most, or moving some, of the PT posts, or whether there is a percentage of replacement that would nullify the grandfathered 6" setback and require me to move the whole fence 3' from the line to come up to code. Just to give you an example of the above mentioned 'percentage', there is a code requirement here that if an addition is added to a house and the sq ft of the addition is greater than the original house, the entire building, including the original house, has to meet, or be brought up to, code. I don't agree with any of it, but that's the law here.

If I ever put up a cedar, or any untreated wood fence again, I would seal all surfaces, especially horizontal surfaces where snow and rainwater lay. It's mostly my rails that are rotting away. I can't even drive nails into the somewhat solid, but loose, pickets to secure them, because it's like driving nails into styrofoam rails.

Reply to
willshak

Wow, that would suck, so potentially 2 neighbours could end up with a 6' gap between their fences? What a waste of space. But then again, no arguing over who wants what kind of fence if it's along the property line. :-)

Since our neighbour isn't sharing our cost, we put our fence about 6" in on our property, so it is entirely ours. If we put it in any further, since they never intend to put up a fence we'd essentially be increasing their property size with out fence.

Our 1x4 is hiding beneath a horizontal 2x4, so for anything to get behind that one is somewhat difficult, but I don't think we'll risk not staining. I'll stain the backs tomorrow morning, let them dry most of the day, then stain the front of the trim when we put them up. Thanks for telling me your cedar fence story, it helped with my decision.

Reply to
blue

Not necessarily, unless you cede that property or allow them to build up to your fence. If your fence was 6' inside your line, you are not giving up that 6'. My neighbor across the street mows that 3' between his fence and the property line. Even so, since the local code requires that setback, it should be exempt from adverse possession laws as long as you don't allow the neighbor to build anything within that 3', which would be against the code anyway.

Reply to
willshak

willshak wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.supernews.com:

wow, 3 feet! Our requirement is only 2 inches.

Reply to
Stephen King

I don't know why it was increased to 3', but I suppose there was some knee jerk reaction. As populations increase and new housing developments are popping up all over, what once was rural is now becoming suburban. I guess there were complaints about people erecting, or doing maintenance on, fences that were too close to the line, and were tearing up their neighbor's lawn, or garden, so they changed it to allow owners to get behind their fence and still be on their own property. It doesn't take many complaints to make changes. "The squeaky wheel gets the oil". I know my neighbor has a garden on the other side of my fence and I am going to have to try to replace the fence without trampling it. 6" doesn't allow much room for maneuvering.

Reply to
willshak

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