Can you repair a fence without replacing the posts?
Yes, if the posts are sound. Test each one: push at shoulder height and press a screwdriver into the timber at soil level. A post that resists the blade and does not pivot can carry a new panel. Sound posts turn a fence rebuild into a panel swap, at £85 to £150 per panel excluding VAT rather than a full run.
Test each post twice, at the surface and just below it. Scrape the soil back 50mm, press a screwdriver into the timber, and push the post hard at shoulder height. A sound post resists the blade and does not pivot. Also watch the ground: if soil lifts in a ring, the footing is loose even where the timber is fine. On concrete posts, check the slots for spalled edges and the base for cracks. Then measure the bay width, because a standard panel needs post centres at roughly 1.83m plus the post.
Sound posts open up repairs that cost very little. Closeboard fencing fails component by component and each component is replaceable: individual feather-edge boards are £0.80 to £2 each in materials, an arris rail bracket is £2 to £5 plus roughly £7 to £15 of labour, and a whole new arris rail is £15 to £25 of timber plus about an hour. That is the real argument for closeboard over lap panels. A damaged lap panel usually means buying a whole panel, because there is nothing on it to replace individually.
Concrete posts and gravel boards give you the best of it. Where the concrete posts are sound and correctly spaced, composite panels can be slotted straight into the existing slots, which takes all the groundwork out of the job. Our composite fencing is £95 to £180 per metre excluding VAT for a full installation, and a retrofit into existing posts sits below that because the posts, footings and gravel boards are already in place. The condition matters: posts that are cracked, leaning or spaced to a non-standard width will not take a stock panel.
Reusing posts becomes a false economy at a certain point. New panels bolted onto twelve-year-old timber posts will outlive the posts, and you pay the access and labour twice. Breaking out an old footing is £50 to £100 per post, and doing it once with the panels already off is cheaper than doing it again in two winters. The published rule of thumb is to repair while the repair costs less than about half of replacing that section, and to get a replacement quote alongside any repair quote that passes £500 to £600 for five or six panels.
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