How to repair rotting fence before painting?

[sushillch]

 

I am looking to repaint this fence as it looks very bad. Only the problem is with the decaying bottom part of the fence. I am on a budget so can't change the fence. Any DIY ideas for the decaying part before I repaint the fence? 

[JacobZ]

Hi @sushillch,

Thank you for your question about how to address the damage to your fence before painting.

My solution to this issue, is to remove that bottom rail of your fence, cut away the rotted bottom sections of the palings and then install a run of timber sleepers at the base of the fence. You can fix the sleeper in place by driving these Jack 450mm Heavy Duty Steel Sleeper Pegs into the ground behind the sleeper, then screwing them into the sleeper with galvanised timber screws.

Once this sleeper run is in place, you can screw the bottom edge of the palings into the sleeper using the same galvanised timber screws.

This will remove the rotted section and replace it with a nice solid timber that is treated for direct contact with the ground. You can then paint your fence as you had planned.

Allow me to tag @Dave-1, @Noyade and @AlanM52 to see if they have ideas you could use.

Let me know what you think.

Jacob

[Dave-1]

Afternoon @sushillch 

I really like @JacobZ's answer to your problem, I would even go as far as to not spend the money on painting but for the sleepers that you will need for the base of the fence. I would also check the fence posts as if the base of the palings are rotted there is a resonable chance the posts themselves may need to be looked at.

Dave

[AlanM52]

Howdy @sushillch,

That rotting looks sus, is there soil build-up on the other side of the fence?

A good neighbour should ensure the bottom of plinth boards are visible.

Have you had a discussion with the neighbour about the condition of the fence?

Moving on I agree with Dave that Jacob's idea is a good one but let's also look at repairing (not replacing) the fence.

At this point I don't know how this will pan out so I'm off to browse the Bunnies website.

For that section of fence I roughly counted 16 palings - about $32.

1 x 5.4M length of fence rail is about $22 so half that - about $11.

Not sure what was used below the bottom rail but those 2 timbers look OK - strange?

Comparing that with Jacob's suggested solution.

1 x 2.4M sleeper about $22

2 x Flat stakes about $20

Cost is about the same and I personally would prefer to retain standard fencing so recommend repairing the fence.

Cheers