After the Rain: What Winter Does to a Los Angeles Fence

The first dry week of January is when the phone starts. Here is what the winter rains actually do to a fence, and which of it is urgent.

Why fences fail in January, not December

Rain does not knock a fence over. Saturated ground does. Soil that has been baked hard all summer softens through a wet fortnight, and a post that has been holding fine for years suddenly has nothing gripping it.

That is why we see the damage after the rain rather than during it. The ground gives up first, the lean follows, and the first Santa Ana gust finishes the job.

The three things to check on your own fence

Walk the line and push each post firmly at chest height. Any movement at the base is a post that needs attention before the next storm. Look for a gap opening between the post and the soil.

Then look at the bottom of the boards. If they are sitting in wet soil or mulch, they are wicking water upward and rotting from the ground up, whatever the fence looks like at eye level.

What is urgent and what can wait

A leaning post on a boundary you rely on is urgent, because the load only goes one way. A few cupped or split boards are cosmetic and can wait for dry weather.

Anything supporting a gate is urgent regardless of how it looks. Gate posts carry far more than line posts and they fail faster once they start moving.

Repair beats replacement more often than people expect

Most of the storm work we do in Los Angeles is individual posts and sections, not whole runs. A fence with sound framing and one collapsed post is a morning of work.

We will tell you honestly if the run has reached the end. Replacing a fence that had ten years left in it is not a service we are interested in providing.

Getting ahead of next winter

The cheapest fence maintenance in this city is adjusting the sprinkler heads that throw onto your boards. Constant damp at the base is what kills timber here, not the weather.

Trim vegetation back off the fence line, keep soil and mulch below the bottom rail, and give the run a look every autumn before the rain arrives.