Residential Fencing
A wood fence is still the most popular way to get a private backyard. J & W Fence installs wood privacy fences, horizontal board fences, and wood-framed wire fencing in Vancouver, WA, and across Clark and Cowlitz counties. Here’s what each style looks like and where it works best.
Wood Fence Styles
Every one of these is from a J & W job. The boards are the part you see, but the style decides how private your yard is, how the fence handles a slope, and how it looks from the street.
Best for: Backyards where you want full privacy and a finished look.
Tight vertical boards with a flat cap running along the top. The cap covers the board ends, gives the fence a clean straight line, and helps shed rain off the top of the boards.
Best for: Long property lines, sloped yards, and budget-minded privacy.
Each board has its top corners clipped, which is where the name comes from. It’s the classic neighborhood privacy fence. Because the boards stand on their own, it follows a rise and dip in the ground well, like the slope in this photo.
Best for: Modern homes, courtyards, and screening a driveway or work area.
Boards run side to side instead of up and down. It reads more modern and works well as a screen around a gravel pad, parking spot, or equipment area. It looks best on level ground or stepped in sections.
Best for: Gardens, pets, and dividing a yard without blocking the view.
Wood posts and rails with wire mesh stretched between them. You keep the warm look of wood, but light and views pass through. It’s a good fit around a vegetable garden or to give a dog its own part of the yard.
Look behind a lot of our wood fences and you’ll find metal posts holding up the rails. The post is where a wood fence usually fails first, because it sits in wet ground all year. A metal post doesn’t rot at the ground line, so the fence stays straight longer and you only see wood from the outside.
A standard privacy fence has a finished face on one side and posts and rails on the other. Most people face the smooth side toward the street or the neighbors. If you want the nicer view from your patio, tell us, because that changes how the fence is built along that stretch.
Already have a wood fence with a few bad boards or a leaning section? We repair wood fences too. See our fence repair page for what we fix and when a replacement makes more sense.
How to Choose
Go with a capped or dog-ear privacy fence. Capped looks more finished. Dog-ear is the classic choice and handles slopes easily.
Horizontal boards give you a clean, contemporary screen. They work best where the ground is fairly level.
A wood-framed wire fence keeps pets and garden pests where they belong without walling off the yard.
A dog-ear fence has boards with clipped top corners and no trim across the top. A capped fence adds a horizontal board along the top that covers the board ends. Capped fences look more finished. Dog-ear fences are simpler and follow uneven ground more easily.
Posts sit in the ground, where moisture rots wood fastest. Metal posts don’t rot, so the fence is less likely to lean over time. From the outside, the fence still looks like a wood fence.
Yes. Vertical board styles like dog-ear can follow the slope of the ground. Horizontal boards are usually stepped in level sections instead. We’ll recommend the right approach for your slope when we see it.
Yes. We replace broken boards, rails, and posts, and we can tell you whether a repair or a new fence makes more sense.
Your Property. Your Next Project.
A new fence, a repair, or a better way in. Tell us what you have in mind and start with a free quote.
