Fence repair in the Illinois Valley, and how to tell a fix from a replacement.
Xcel Outdoor Living repairs fences out of Spring Valley, Illinois, across Bureau, LaSalle, Putnam, Marshall and Lee counties. We work on fences we did not build, which is most of them. Some of it is a post and an afternoon. Some of it is a fence that has come to the end, and this page is about telling those two apart before you spend anything.
A patch that leans again next spring is not a saving. Which side of that line your fence sits on is the first thing below.
Repair or replace, and how that call gets made.
Post by post, rather than fence by fence. A run with sound posts and tired boards is a repair. A run where the posts have gone at the ground is a rebuild in a fence costume, because everything standing above them is only as true as they are.
So the first thing that happens is somebody puts a hand on your posts. Not a photograph, not a description over the phone. The posts either move or they do not, and that one answer decides most of what follows.
Sometimes the answer is that the fence is finished. We would rather say that standing in your yard than take the work and have you standing in the same yard two winters later looking at the same lean. That answer costs you nothing and it is yours to disagree with.
Have someone come and look- Usually a repairPosts that hold when you lean on them. A section that took a hit while the rest of the run stayed true. A gate that has lost its square. Boards that have gone where nothing underneath them has.
- Usually a replacementPosts moving down the length of the fence rather than in one spot. Rot carried the whole way along the bottom. Enough of it coming out that what is left standing is still the old fence.
- Settled on siteWhich of those two you have is not visible in a photo and it is not audible on a phone call. It is a hand on the post and a look at the ground line, and that visit costs nothing.
What we get called out for.
Four things, and they turn up in roughly this order. Every one of them can be a repair and every one of them can be the end of a fence, which is the whole reason somebody has to come and look at it.
Storm and wind damage.
Wind does not take a fence down evenly. It finds the panel with the least holding it, goes through there, and leaves you a gap with two tired posts either side of it. Downed sections, snapped posts, a panel lifted out and put down in the neighbor’s yard: that is ordinary work here, and it does not have to be a fence we built.
The damage you can see is rarely all of it. A gust hard enough to lay a section on the ground has had a go at every post still standing, and a run that looks untouched from the patio can have three posts in it that have begun to move. That is why the walk covers the whole fence rather than the hole in it.
If a section is down as you read this and there is a dog, a pool or a road on the other side of the gap, that is a different call from this one.
A fence that came down todayRepairing the first half and leaving the second is how the same fence comes down twice.
A run that has started to lean.
A leaning fence is nearly always a post problem, and the post is nearly always telling you about the hole it is standing in. Ground that freezes lifts a shallow post and never sets it back down. Four winters of that and the run walks out of plumb a little at a time, which is why nobody can name the week it started.
It is the single most common reason a cheaply built fence is crooked by year three, and it is why a repair that is worth anything has to go under the ground. We set posts below the frost line. A post stood back up in the same shallow hole it came out of buys you a season.
One post moving at the end of a sound run is a repair. Four of them moving down the length of the fence is the ground giving you its answer, and it is not the answer anybody wants to hear. Either way, finding out costs nothing.
Why post depth decides everythingRot, and where it actually starts.
Wood dies at the ground first, and the ground is the one part of a fence nobody looks at. A run can be sound at the height your hand falls and gone at the soil line, which is how a fence that seemed fine goes over in one push.
What decides the job is how far along the run it has travelled. Softness in one post at a low corner where water sits is a local problem with a local answer. The same softness in every third post means the whole fence has stood in the same conditions for the same number of years, and it will keep arriving.
You can read most of it yourself before anyone arrives, and it takes about two minutes.
- The soil linePush hard at the base of one post, then at the next. Sound wood does not give. Wood that has gone feels spongy under a thumb well before it looks like anything from standing height.
- The top edge of the railThe face you see is the dry side. The upward-facing edge where a rail meets a post holds water, and that joint carries every board hung on it.
- The bottom of the boardsRun a hand along the lower edge. If it crumbles at the corner, water has been sitting against it long enough to matter, and the boards are usually not the only thing it reached.
None of that is a diagnosis. It is a way of turning up to the walkthrough already knowing which posts to point at.
A gate that drags, sags or will not catch.
The gate is the part of the run your hand is on every day, so it is the part you notice first and the part that gets forced. By the time a latch needs a shoulder behind it, the leaf has usually already lost its square.
Some of that is the season and it corrects itself. Wood takes water on and gives it back, so a gate that swung clean in June can drag in a wet February and be fine again by spring. A gate that dropped and stayed down moved for a different reason, and that is the one worth looking at.
Where the trouble sits decides the size of the job. A leaf racked out of square is a gate. A true gate dragged out of line by the post it hangs on is a post, and straightening the leaf leaves you standing here again next year.
Have the gate looked at- Seasonal dragComes and goes with the weather, catches cleanly again in spring, and has been doing it for years without getting worse.
- Lost its squareDropped once and stayed down. The latch has been forced ever since, the gap along the top has opened, and the leaf no longer meets the post square.
- The post, not the gateThe leaf is still true and the post it hangs on is not. This one is a leaning post with a gate’s symptoms, and it is answered further up this page.
What happens after you get in touch.
The same walkthrough every other job here gets.
- You describe what it is doing, not what is wrong with it. A run that leans, a gate that will not catch, a stretch that has gone soft at the bottom. Working out the cause is the job, and it is ours.
- Jake comes out and the estimate is free. He walks the whole run rather than the part you called about, puts a hand on the posts, and looks at where the fence meets the ground.
- You get the repair or replace answer on the day. What does not come on the day is the number. The quote follows the visit, so nobody is doing arithmetic on your driveway.
- Rocky ground is read while he is standing on it. Parts of the Illinois Valley are rock, and a crew that does not know the ground finds that out mid-dig and comes back to you with a cost. It is priced in before you are quoted. The number you were given is the number.
- Where the work needs a permit, it is ours to pull, and so is the JULIE locate. The fee sits inside the number. Some towns want your signature on the application, and that is the part that comes back to you. Where your property line runs is still yours to prove.
- Three to four people show up, and Jake is on the job. The person who read your fence is the person standing at it while it gets fixed.
Asked before anybody books a repair.
Do you repair fences you did not build?
Yes. Most of the fences we are asked to look at were put in by somebody else, often years before the person who owns them now. You do not need to have hired us before and you do not need to know what is wrong with it. Tell us what the fence is doing and we will come and read it.
How do you decide whether to repair or replace?
Post by post rather than fence by fence. Sound posts with tired boards or a section that took a hit is a repair. Posts that move when you lean on the run are a different job, because everything above them is only as true as they are. Nobody can tell those two apart from a photograph, which is why the visit is free and comes first.
My fence is leaning. Can the posts be straightened?
Sometimes, and the ground decides it rather than the fence does. Ground that freezes lifts a shallow post and never sets it back down, which is the most common reason a cheaply built fence is crooked by year three. Standing that post back up in the same shallow hole buys you a season. We set posts below the frost line, so a post we reset goes deeper than the one that leaned.
The gate drags and the latch will not catch. Is that fixable?
Usually, and the first question is whether it is the season or the gate. Wood takes water on and gives it back, so a gate that swung clean in June can drag in a wet February and be fine again by spring. A gate that dropped and stayed down has lost its square, and by then the latch has been forced for a while to make it catch. That is the one worth looking at.
If a repair means digging new post holes, who pulls the permit?
We do, when the work needs one. The permit is ours to pull and so is the JULIE locate, the fee sits inside the number you were quoted, and the utilities get marked before anything goes in the ground. Some towns want the property owner’s signature on the application, so that part still comes to you. Proving where your line runs is still yours, and so is an HOA sign-off if you have one.
What does it cost to find out?
Nothing. Jake comes out, walks the whole run rather than the part you called about, and tells you on the day whether you are looking at a repair or a replacement. The number comes after the visit rather than during it. Rocky ground is read while he is standing on it and priced in before you are quoted, so the number you were given is the number.
What counts as an emergency?
A gap in the run with something behind it that has to stay in the yard, or something in front of it that has to stay out. A dog, a pool, a road. Work like that is prioritised and goes ahead of the schedule. A fence that leans, drags or has gone soft at the bottom is not urgent in that sense, however long it has been bothering you, and it is what the rest of this page is about.
If this is not quite it.
Tell us what the fence is doing.
The estimate is free and Jake comes out. He walks the whole run, puts a hand on the posts, and tells you on the day whether it wants a repair or a replacement. The number comes after, built on what he saw.
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