Pale Fencing

Using either 75mm, 100mm or 150mm square edged boards it is possible to design and build a substantial fence flexible enough to cope with different requirements – including wind loads, ground levels and security. Boards of 3.6 metres can be cut into 1.8m, 1.2m and 0.9 metre lengths to cover the most popular fence heights without incurring any waste. It is strongly recommended that any cross cuts are treated with two coats of Ensele end-grain preservative treatment.

Pale fences are normally spaced in one of two ways – either the width or the thickness of the board being used, e.g. a fence utilising 150mm boards would leave either 22mm or 150mm gaps. In practice most vertical pales are spaced close enough together to prevent anyone being able to gain a foothold on the rail and scale the fence. Post and rail sizes should be selected depending on factors including height of fence, wind load and distance between posts. Minimum recommendation would be 75mm x 75mm posts for 0.9m high pales of 100mm width and 100mm x 100mm posts for any 150mm width pales.

All sorts of variations can be used to produce an individual looking fence, including alternating 150mm width boards with a narrower board, or maybe using planed boards for a smoother finish which could be painted afterwards.

Long straight runs of fence can be made more interesting by putting some curves into the top line of the fence.