Fence calculator: posts, rails, pickets and concrete
Each run of fence, divided by your post spacing and rounded up, is its sections. One more post than sections closes the line, and each gate adds one. Rails go by the section, pickets by the inch of run, and concrete by the hole. In the example below 160 feet of fence take 23 posts, 63 rails, 350 pickets and 79 bags.
Count the fence
Type each straight run of a wood fence. You get the posts, the rails, the pickets and the bags of concrete for the holes, and lines to put on a quote. A figure of yours that is missing leaves its own line out, and the rest is still counted.
The fence line
Each straight run, in feet, measured without the gate openings. A new row opens when the last one is filled.
The posts
Your own spacing. It starts empty: we found no source worth quoting for one. It cannot be more than your rails are long.
Each gate adds a post. The gate itself is a line of its own.
Used for the length of a post, and for nothing else.
Rails and pickets
It starts empty: how many a fence takes is yours to say.
It starts at 5.5, what a board sold as 6 inches wide measures. Measure yours.
Leave it empty for boards set tight. An eighth of an inch is 0.125.
Leave it empty to leave them out of the count.
The holes
It starts at 3.5, what a post sold as a 4 by 4 measures. A 6 by 6 measures 5.5.
It starts at 12: the concrete maker's guide makes the hole 3 times the width of the post.
The depth of the hole, less any gravel under the post and any soil on top. It starts empty: what the maker's guide says is under the calculator.
A hole is never dug exactly to size. It starts empty, which is none.
Printed on the bag. It starts at 0.45, one maker's 60 lb bag of fast-setting mix.
Type the feet of the first run. The count shows here.
A back yard fence, counted
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
Say a fence runs 60 feet down one side of a back yard, 40 across the back and 60 up the other side, with 1 gate, and say you set a post every 8 feet. That is 160 feet in 21 sections, and 23 posts. Say it stands 6 feet with 24 inches of each post in concrete: every post is at least 8 feet long. Say each section takes 3 rails: 63. Say the pickets are 5.5 inches wide and set tight: 350, and at 2 nails in each picket at each rail, 2,100 nails. A hole 12 inches across round a 3.5 inch post holds 1.4 cubic feet of concrete, so 23 holes take 32.22, and 35.44 with 10% extra: 79 bags that yield 0.45 cubic feet each.
The count, part by part
- Sections: each run divided by your post spacing, rounded up. A run is never left short of a post.
- Posts: the sections of every run added up, and one more to close the line. Runs that meet at a corner share a post. Each gate adds one, because a gate has a post on both sides. A fence that comes all the way round to where it started needs no closing post.
- Rails: the sections times the rails in each.
- Pickets: each run in inches, divided by a picket and its gap, rounded up, run by run.
- Concrete: the hole is a cylinder. Half its width, squared, times pi, times the depth of the concrete, less the post standing in it. In QUIKRETE's guide to setting posts the hole is 3 times the width of the post, about 12 inches for a 4 inch wood post.
- Bags: the cubic feet for every hole, plus your extra, divided by what one bag yields, rounded up once for the whole job. QUIKRETE's data sheet puts a 60 lb bag of its fast-setting mix at about 0.45 cubic feet.
What the makers say about the hole and the post
- Width. Both of QUIKRETE's papers make the hole 3 times as wide as the post: its guide and the data sheet for its fast-setting mix.
- Depth. The guide says a third to a half of the post's height above ground, and at least 2 feet for a 6 foot fence. The data sheet says one half. The two do not agree, so the box starts empty: your plans, your building department or your own practice fills it.
- What else is in the hole. The same guide puts about 6 inches of gravel in the bottom and stops the concrete 3 to 4 inches below the ground. Neither is concrete, so take both off the depth you type.
- The post and the picket. The Southern Forest Products Association's table of standard sizes puts a 4 by 4 at 3 and a half inches each way once it is dressed, and a 6 by 6 at 5 and a half. A board sold as 6 inches wide is 5 and a half, and one sold as 4 is 3 and a half. Those are Southern Pine's sizes: measure what you buy.
Three boxes that start empty, and why
Post spacing, rails to a section and the gap between pickets all start empty. We looked for each at a source worth naming and did not find one for a wood fence round a yard. The lumber associations we read publish sizes and grades and say nothing about spacing, and the step-by-step sheets that do say name no author.
So the count works with whatever you have typed. With no spacing it still adds up the feet and counts the pickets. With no rails there is no line for rails. Nothing is filled in to make an answer look whole.
The spacing has one limit that is plain arithmetic: a rail has to reach from one post to the next, so the posts cannot be farther apart than your rails are long.
What this count is not
- It is for a wood fence built from posts, rails and pickets. Panels, chain link, vinyl and wire are bought another way, and this page does not count them.
- It does not count gates, gate hardware, post caps, rail brackets or the fasteners that hold a rail to a post.
- It is not a design. Nothing here says how deep a post has to go on your ground: that is your building department's to say, or the plans'.
- It does not price anything. TailGateBid has no price data, and the boxes for what a post and a foot of fence cost you are on the page that prices the job.
From the count to the quote
This site prices a fence by the foot, and you buy it by the post, the rail and the picket. The lines under the calculator give both: the footage first, then what goes on the truck.
Next, work out what to charge for a foot of it. That page takes the same runs and the same spacing, puts your cost on a post and on a foot, adds your hours and ends at a price. Or put the lines on an estimate and print it.
For concrete alone, footings and slabs included, there is the concrete calculator. And TailGateBid for fence builders has a whole fence quote worked through, gate and tear-out and all.
Where each number comes from
- The box for the width of the post starts at 3.5 inches. In the Southern Forest Products Association's table of standard sizes, lumber sold as 4 inches is that size once it is dressed, and timbers 5 inches and thicker are half an inch under their name, so a 6 by 6 measures 5.5. Starting at the 4 by 4 is our choice. Southern Forest Products Association, Standard Sizing, . (our choice, change it)
- The box for the width of a picket starts at 5.5 inches. In the same association's table a board sold as 6 inches wide is that width once it is dressed, and one sold as 4 inches wide is 3.5. Starting at the wider is our choice. Pickets differ: measure yours. Southern Forest Products Association, Standard Sizing, . (our choice, change it)
- The box for the width of a hole starts at 12 inches. QUIKRETE's guide to setting posts makes the hole 3 times the width of the post, and says the hole for a 4 inch wood post should be about that wide. Starting there is our choice. QUIKRETE, Setting Posts without Mixing, . (our choice, change it)
- The box for what one bag yields starts at 0.45 cubic feet. That is what QUIKRETE's data sheet gives for a 60 lb bag of its fast-setting concrete mix. Starting at that bag is our choice. Type the yield printed on the bag you buy. QUIKRETE, Fast-Setting Concrete Mix data sheet (no. 1004-60), . (our choice, change it)
A TailGateBid quote takes the fence by the foot, at your own price, and your customer signs it on their phone.
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Sources
Related
- Fence installationAdd up the runs, count the posts, and see what a price for each foot of fence leaves you.
- FencingFootage, posts and gates on a quote, and a website to show the finished line.
- Estimate makerType a few lines and print a clean estimate or quote, in English or Spanish. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
- Concrete calculatorSlabs, footings and round forms into cubic yards to order and bags to buy, with lines to put on a quote.
By TailGateBid. .
A count is as good as the measurements you type. What is printed on the bag, the can, the pail or the box you buy decides, and so do the plans.