Fence Replacement in Kent, WA
Much of East Hill was fenced when the plats went in during the 1980s and 1990s, and a lot of those cedar fences are on their second or third round of propping. Replacement is the job of taking one down, settling where the new one goes, and building it so the next owner is not having this conversation.
What Replacement Costs and When It Beats Repair
A replacement quote is an installation quote with tear-out on the front of it, and the decision to replace is made at the posts.
Replacing a fence in Kent costs the new fence's per-foot price plus about $3 to $7 a foot to tear out and haul the old one: roughly $38 to $72 per foot for 6-foot cedar. Replace rather than repair once posts have rotted through in several places along a run.
The tear-out figure is the range regional contractors publish for removal and disposal; the cedar figure is that range on top of the install prices in the cost guide. On a 150-foot backyard line that is about $450 to $1,050 of demolition before the first new post, and some contractors fold it into the per-foot number rather than listing it, so compare bids on the total.
The replacement test
A fence with one bad post and a broken gate is a repair. A fence where a shoulder against any post makes it move, where rails have pulled their fasteners out of soft post wood, or where a lean was straightened last year and is back this year, has failed at the footings, and footings cannot be patched. On the East Hill hardpan and the valley silt, posts in a run tend to fail within a few winters of each other, which is why a contractor who has replaced two posts on a fence this year will usually suggest pricing the whole line.
The Old Fence Line Is Not the Property Line
The most expensive mistake in a Kent fence replacement is rebuilding exactly where the old fence stood. The old fence was set by whoever built it, often from a tape measure and a guess, and thirty years later nobody remembers.
- Get the line located. A boundary survey, or at minimum found and flagged property pins, costs a fraction of a fence. Rebuilding a foot onto the neighbour's side and leaving it there for ten years is the fact pattern behind an adverse-possession claim under RCW 4.16.020, and it runs in both directions.
- Decide on-the-line or inside-it. A fence built entirely inside your own line is yours: your cost, your maintenance, your decision on style. A fence on the line is shared property in practice, and the neighbour has a say in what it is and a claim on what happens to it.
- Who pays. Washington's fence statute, chapter 16.60 RCW, lives in the livestock title. RCW 16.60.020 makes an adjoining owner pay half the value of a boundary fence they later use to enclose their own land, and RCW 16.60.030 allows notice requiring a neighbour to build half of a needed partition fence; those provisions were written for pasture and carry little into a Kent subdivision. For a backyard privacy fence, a neighbour pays half when they have agreed to in writing, and otherwise does not.
How a Kent Replacement Runs
- Measure and locate. The contractor walks the line, checks the pins or the survey, flags utilities, and notes gates, slopes, and anything the old fence is holding back, such as a neighbour's rockery or a planting bed.
- Choose the fence. Same material or a switch: cedar again, vinyl to stop the staining cycle, or chain link on a run nobody looks at. The post detailing is chosen for the ground, not the material.
- Tear-out. Panels off, posts pulled or cut, old concrete broken out or the new hole offset to miss it. Old footings left in the ground are the reason some rebuilt fences end up six inches off the line they were meant to follow.
- Build. Posts set and cured, then rails, boards or panels, then gates. Two to four days on site for a typical Kent backyard once the crew starts.
- Clean-up and finish. Old material hauled, ground raked, and for cedar a note on when to stain.