Should I treat or stain a new fence?
Yes, but not immediately. Pressure-treated timber arrives with its protection already in it and needs to weather and dry before it will take a stain, usually a few months. After that, a preservative or exterior stain every two to three years is what turns a five to eight year fence into a 10 to 20 year one.
New pressure-treated timber is often still damp with treatment and will not accept a coating properly. Put stain on too early and it sits on the surface, dries patchy and peels within a season. Leave a new fence through a summer, let it weather and dry out, then treat it. Dip-treated products are the exception and go the other way: their manufacturers specify retreatment every year, starting sooner, because the protection is only skin deep.
Once you start, the interval matters more than the product. Published guidance across the trade is a preservative or exterior stain every two to three years, and that cadence is the difference between the bottom and the top of the lifespan range. A fence treated on that rhythm reaches 10 to 20 years; one treated once and forgotten does not, whatever it cost to install.
Concentrate the effort where the damage happens. The bottom 300mm of boards and anything near soil, planting or a border takes the most water and rots first. The south-facing side takes the most ultraviolet and greys fastest. The top edges and the end grain of every board drink water straight down the fibres. Those are the places to be generous; the middle of a board is rarely the problem.
One thing not to do: treat a fence you do not own. Painting, staining or otherwise altering a neighbour's fence, including the face on your side, needs their permission. If your side of their fence looks tired, ask them. It is usually a short conversation, and it avoids a long one.
More in materials and lifespan, or browse all 36 questions on the FAQ index.
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