Wooden fencing is a common sight in most homes and it’s not difficult to see why this is the case. The thing you have to consider with a lot of wooden fencing is that taking care of it, and looking after it can be a challenge. As a leading garden fence installation company, here are some tips on ensuring you look after your garden fencing so you won’t have to pay expensive replacement costs.
It’s not the easiest thing to do but there are things you can do to make it work out a bit more. What we thought we would do is take a look at how to look after wooden fencing. With the right tools and a bit of thought, it’s possible to do a lot of things.
Get the Right Equipment For the Job
Obviously, if you want to be able to get the best results when it comes to your wooden fencing and regular maintenance, you need the right equipment for the job.
Wooden fencing is a great resource, but there are certain things you need to think about if you want to be able to take care of it properly.
This means you need things like a hose, a pressure washer, wooden stain, a cloth, and other tools to keep the wood in tip-top condition. Making sure that you have the right tools for the job is a good way to deal with things.
Watch out for Plants and Your Garden
Performing basic fence maintenance is something that people do all the time, but if you are going to do this, you need to make sure that you are protecting your plants and other parts of your garden from harm. It’s important to try and be sensible about how you do things, especially if you are working with cleaning chemicals or a hose.
Take your time with basic fence maintenance, and don’t try and rush out.
It’s important to make sure that you get a thorough job done, but at the same time, you don’t want to damage anything unnecessarily.
Bleach First, Power Wash Second
When it comes to having the right cleaner for wooden fencing, you can buy a premade mixture in your local garden store, alternatively you can create your own using bleach and water. The objective is to water down the bleach so it doesn’t destroy the world, but it’s still strong enough that you can clean with it. Achieving the balance is delicate, but it’s well worth it in the end.
Apply the cleaning solution to the fencing first, and give it a good scrub. Try and particularly focus on any of the problem areas that you can see, and then you take the hose off the pressure washer and then blast it clean.
Let Your Wood Dry Out Properly
Now, obviously, after-care is an important part of owning a wooden fence. You want to make sure that you look after it in the right way, so you need to make sure that you apply the things like the varnish and the polish, but you need to wait for the wood to dry. The last thing that you want to do is accidentally locking moisture, because this will weaken the wood over time.
Instead, your best bet is to take a look at waiting until the word has dried before you start applying things, and just to go slowly. Ideally, you want to get a nice, even, consistent coat of varnish and polish across the world.
Consistency
Consistency is one of the hardest things to do when it comes to basic wooden fence care, but it takes not that long to perform this kind of task and it can have a big impact. Consistency needs to be what you work on.
It’s important to realise that when it comes to things like wooden fencing, they will benefit from you taking the time to do this on a regular basis. If you want to extend the lifespan of your fencing beyond what you think it can physically do, then you need to put the maximum effort into taking care of it.
Replace As Necessary
When we think about wooden fencing, ultimately, we do have to be somewhat pragmatic about it, and recognise that eventually, the wood will become too damaged to use. There is only so much you can do in terms of maintenance and basic care, before the natural lifespan of the word begins to run out and the material begins to break down.
This is perfectly normal when it happens, and the best thing that you can do in this situation is to just replace the wood with a new panel or new piece of fencing and move on. Damaged wood fencing is a waste of time and resources, so there’s no point trying to maintain it when it has reached the limit.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to wooden fencing, you have a responsibility to try and keep it in the best possible condition.
This will pay dividends later on when your fencing continues to look good and as a practical job for a long period of time.
However, like most things, the fencing will only continue to be suitable for long-term usage if you put the time in to keep it in the best condition. This is where a lot of people fall down, because basic maintenance is hard to do.
Your best bet will often be to try and focus on regular maintenance, at least once a year. The summer months are probably the best time to be doing this, because the wood will dry quickly and that means you can get through the task with more time to spare. Furthermore, it’s well worth strengthening the fencing in the summer to protect it during the winter when the weather is more unpredictable and prone to extremes.
Fencing maintenance is just a normal part of owning property. It can be quite annoying sometimes, but it’s worth it to get the hang of. If you take the time to experiment with what’s available, you’ll see that you have plenty of different results.