Fencing Calculator
Posts, pickets, rails, and concrete for the whole run — gates taken out of the length first, the way the fence actually gets built.
Post depth, footing design, and wind loading are site and permit questions, not outputs here. Long Beach has no frost line to speak of — the post-depth rules written for freeze country do not drive the number here.
How the math works
Gates come out of the run before anything else. Sections = fenced length ÷ post spacing, rounded up. Posts = sections + 1, plus two per gate (gate posts carry hardware and get their own line). Pickets = fenced length × 12 ÷ (picket width + gap). Rails = sections × rails per section. Concrete is posts × your bags-per-post planning figure.
A worked example
A 100 ft run with one 4 ft gate leaves 96 ft to fence: 12 sections at 8 ft spacing, 15 posts (13 line-and-corner plus 2 gate posts), 24 rails at two per section, 192 pickets exact for 5.5 in pickets on a 1/2 in gap — 212 to buy at 10% waste — and 15 bags of concrete at one per post.
Questions from the field
How far apart should fence posts be? 8 ft is the working standard for wood privacy fences; 6 ft buys stiffness in wind and with heavy gates. The calculator takes your spacing — it does not pick it.
How much concrete per fence post? One 60 lb bag per post is the common planning figure for a standard post hole; bigger holes and gate posts drink more. It is an input here, set to 1, because your holes decide.
Do I need a post at every gate? Yes — two per gate, and they do the hardest work on the fence. This page counts them separately so they do not vanish into the line-post count.
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