My fence is leaning, what should I do?
Push the fence upright by hand and watch the base of each post. If a post moves in the ground or the timber crumbles at soil level, that post has failed and the panel is holding on borrowed time. Make it safe, keep children and pets away, and book a repair. Post rot at ground level is the most common cause of fence failure.
Start by finding where the movement is. Grip the post at shoulder height, push and pull, and watch the ground. If the soil lifts in a ring around the base, the concrete footing has worked loose. If the post pivots at the soil line while the footing stays put, the timber has rotted through. If the post stands firm and the panel racks sideways, the rails or the panel fixings have failed. Scrape the soil away and press a screwdriver into the post at ground level. Sound timber resists the blade. Rotten timber takes it under thumb pressure.
Make it safe before you do anything else. A leaning panel drops without warning in the next gust, and a 6ft panel is heavy enough to hurt a child or a dog. Lift the panel out of its slots or unscrew it from the rails, lay it flat in the garden, and weight it down. If the boundary keeps a dog in, put up a temporary barrier the same day. There is also a legal edge to this. Citizens Advice notes that an unsafe wall or fence can lead to action by a neighbour or the council, so a dangerous fence is not something to leave for spring.
A single failed post is a half-day job. The old concrete footing has to come out, which the trade budgets at £50 to £100 per post on its own, then a new post is set in Postcrete and the panels go back. Our fence repairs are £60 to £150 per repair and panel replacement is £85 to £150 per panel, both excluding VAT. Where several posts along the same run need doing, the per-post rate usually drops, but at that point a replacement quote is worth having alongside the repair quote.
Walk the whole line before you spend anything. Trade cost guides put the repair-or-replace line in plain terms: repair when the damage sits in one or two bays and the posts are structurally sound, and replace when posts are rotting at the base across multiple bays or the fence is past fifteen years with widespread deterioration. One more check first. If the fence belongs to your neighbour, you cannot repair it without their permission, and there is no left-hand or right-hand rule that tells you whose it is.
More in repairs and storms, or browse all 36 questions on the FAQ index.
Price your fencing
Two quick steps. We reply within one working day.
No account, no obligation. We only use this to prepare your quote.
Ready to price your fencing?
Tell us the job and your postcode. We reply within one working day with an honest cost bracket, then a fixed written quote once we have measured up.