Three rail wood fence with welded wire backing along a shaded Winter Park field

Recent Project

Three Rail Wood Fence With Wire Backing in Winter Park

Pressure treated rail, welded wire behind it, and a fence line that bends around the oaks instead of through them.

Location: Winter Park, FL
Material: Pressure treated pine
Style: Three rail with wire
Site: Large lot with live oaks

This three rail wood fence with wire backing wraps a big, shaded lot in Winter Park. It is the kind of property people do not expect inside city limits, with a field, an outbuilding, live oaks hung with Spanish moss and a long stretch of road frontage. The owner wanted to keep dogs in and keep the open look. Rail fence with wire behind it does both.

The rails are pressure treated pine on posts set in concrete, with welded wire stapled to the inside face. Straightline Fence stocks both the lumber and the wire at our St. Cloud yard, so you can put a hand on it before you choose. Call (407) 593-1888 and we will come walk the line.

Why the wire

Why add wire backing to a three rail wood fence?

Because three rails mark a boundary but do not hold much in. The wire is what stops a dog, or a hoof, going through.

Three rails alone leave gaps. A medium dog walks right through them without ducking. Welded wire on the inside face closes those gaps and keeps the open, farm style look from the road. It is the same build we use for horses, where the bigger risk is a hoof going between the rails, and that injury ruins a horse and a fence in one go, which is why we steer people away from barbed wire for horses.

The wire goes on the side facing the animals. That way a dog leaning on it pushes the mesh into the rails rather than off the staples. Our field fence installation page goes deeper on rail and wire combinations for acreage, including crossbuck and vinyl rail.

Three rail wood fence with welded wire backing running through a Winter Park side yard

The oaks

How do you build a fence around big live oaks?

Carefully, and mostly by moving the posts rather than the roots.

Winter Park is proud of its tree canopy, and the city protects it. Removing a large tree generally takes a city permit, and damaging a protected tree during construction can cost the owner later. So the fence goes around the trees. Near the oaks on this job, the crew dug post holes by hand and shifted the spacing a little so no post landed on a major root.

You can see it in the photos. The run kinks slightly where it passes the big trunk near the road, and that is on purpose. A perfectly straight line would have put a post right in the root flare. Tree work is one of the reasons we walk a property in person before quoting. Our wood fence installation page covers the choice between cypress and pressure treated pine for a fence that sits in shade most of the day.

Wood rail fence with wire backing passing beside a large live oak on a Winter Park property

Timeline

How long does a rail and wire fence take to install?

A few days on site for a lot this size. The planning before it takes longer than the build.

First comes the measure. People price acreage fencing in their heads by multiplying the size of the lot, and that is never close. A square acre needs roughly 835 feet of fence, and no real lot is square, especially one with a driveway, an outbuilding and trees to go around. We measure the actual line.

Then Sunshine 811 marks the buried utilities, which by law takes two full business days. After that the crew sets posts first, lets the concrete grab, then runs the rails and the wire. The photos were taken as the crew was cleaning up, with the last offcuts still on the grass. The driveway end ties into the black gate at the entrance. If you want the same thing on your property, schedule a free estimate or call (407) 593-1888.