Fence Calculator

How to Estimate Privacy Fence Materials

Fences are a great way to add privacy, security, and decor to your property. They can be constructed from a variety of materials, including wood, metal, vinyl, and stone.

Wood is one of the most common fence materials. Wood fences come in many styles, and can be built from several types of wood, including pressure-treated lumber, and softwoods like cedar or redwood.

This calculator will help you determine the amount of materials you’ll need to build a wood fence without relying on readymade panels.

Some concrete and the tools to mix and pour it will also be needed to set the posts. Use our post concrete calculator to estimate the amount of concrete you need to set your fence posts. The amount of material you need to build your fence depends on the style. Wood fences come in many types, including stockade, dog-ear, and shadowbox.

Some styles, such as a board-on-board fence, offer superior privacy but require more material. Others, like a side-by-side fence, use less material and can be oriented vertically or horizontally.

Once you’ve chosen a style, you can enter your total length and rail and picket or board specs into the wood fence calculator above to get an estimated bill of materials.

The calculator will estimate how much lumber you need to construct your fence, including the number of posts, rails, pickets, concrete, and nails/screws.

How Many Fence Posts Do You Need?

The first step in figuring out how much wood is needed to build a fence is to measure the length of the total fence run in feet. Given the total length, you can estimate the number of posts you need.

Posts for wood fences are typically 8 feet apart; if you are using other materials, keep in mind that posts can be placed up to 25′ apart. To calculate the number of posts for a wood fence, divide the length by 8′ and round up to get the number of sections. Then, add 1 to account for the last post.

For example, let’s find how many posts are needed for a fence with a planned length of 100 feet.

How Many Fence Rails Do You Need?

Rails are the horizontal boards that run between the posts that the fence boards or pickets are affixed to. To calculate rails, decide the number of rails you want.

This will vary by the style and height of the fence, but there should be at least two. Privacy fences are generally at least 6′ tall, but may go as high as 12′. The general rule of thumb for rails is to have one rail for every 24″ of height in your fence.

For a 6′ high fence, this means 3 rails. For a 12′ high fence, this means 6 rails. If you are building a shorter fence, you may only need 2 rails. Multiply the number of sections by the number of rails per section to find the total rails needed. The number of sections is equal to the number of posts in the previous step, minus 1.

Tips For Estimating Fence Lumber

We recommend ordering 10% extra lumber to account for cutoffs and waste. Posts are commonly constructed using 4×4 dimensional lumber, and rails are often 2×4.

Plan on ordering lumber to build gates as needed, including additional posts and hardware. Gate posts are usually 4×4 or 6×6 dimensional lumber.