Cedar and pressure-treated fencing, built board by board.

Both last. They just age differently, and the right answer depends on how you want the fence to look in year five.

Western red cedar is naturally resistant to rot and insects without chemical treatment. It starts a warm reddish-brown and, left alone, weathers to a soft silver-grey that most homeowners come to prefer. It is lighter, more dimensionally stable, and less prone to the twisting and cupping that plagues wet lumber. It costs more up front.

Pressure-treated pine is the value option and is genuinely durable when installed properly. It arrives wet, so it needs a season to dry before staining, and it is more likely to move as it dries. If you plan to stain the fence anyway, treated pine makes a lot of sense.

• Solid board privacy — boards butted edge to edge for a full visual screen. The standard choice for pool areas and back yards.
• Stockade — pointed pickets set tight, the traditional New England look and the most economical solid fence.
• Flat top / straight edge — a cleaner, more contemporary line than stockade, and a favourite on newer homes.
• Board on board — overlapping boards that stay private even as the wood shrinks, and look finished from both sides.
• Shadowbox — alternating boards on either side of the rails, so the fence looks identical to you and your neighbour and still lets air through.
• Spaced picket — open, low and traditional, for front yards and garden borders.
• Lattice or arched top — a decorative cap that adds height and softens a long, flat run.

Most wood fences fail at the post, not the panel. Ours are set deep enough to sit below the frost line so the ground cannot lift them, backfilled and tamped in lifts rather than dumped in one go, and set plumb and left to cure before any weight goes on them.

Rails are fastened to the post face rather than toe-nailed, hardware is hot-dipped galvanised or stainless so it will not bleed rust down your boards, and gate posts are oversized because a gate is the part of the fence that has to move ten thousand times.