JimT Posted February 24 Report Share Posted February 24 I am hiring a contractor to install a BoB fence on my back yard. I noticed that many of the nails on the top layer of pickets miss the pickets under and directly go to the rail. If this reasonable for BoB fence installation? Does the nail on the top pickets need to go through both layers and then into the rail? Thanks, Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted February 24 Report Share Posted February 24 Please post a picture of what you mean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted February 24 Report Share Posted February 24 Is this correct? You see exposed nail shanks? Maybe this an expansion mitigation? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimT Posted February 24 Author Report Share Posted February 24 I can not post a photo directly. Here is a relevant link: https://www.wellingtonfl.gov/DocumentCenter/View/2692/Wellington-ARB-approved-fence-detail-sheet The second picture in the document: for the board on top, the attaching nails directly go into the rail without penetrating the 'overlap'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimT Posted February 24 Author Report Share Posted February 24 your are absolutely correct. Lots of nails like this without penetrating the underlayer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimT Posted February 24 Author Report Share Posted February 24 Because of the length of the nail, I don't think it can provide enough support for the top board. My thought is that either the contractor is doing a low-quality work, or they are trying to save on materials and make the gap too big. What is your opinion? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted February 24 Report Share Posted February 24 At least one nail on each side to the top layer needs to go into the boards in the first layer. Beyond that it probably doesn't make a lot of difference. If they all skipped the first layer of boards, the outer layer would probably droop some over time. I have board on board White Oak siding on our house and barn, both built in 1980. I overlapped 1-1/4" on each board below using full rough sawn 1x6's, so there is 3-1/2" of the first layer boards showing between the outer layer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimT Posted February 24 Author Report Share Posted February 24 Each picket of top layer has 6 nails (2 top, 2 middle, and 2 bottom). I found that for some pickets, all 6 nails go directly to the rail skipping the first layer. For some others, only 1-2 go into the first layer. The project is about half-way through. I wonder if there are any specific protocols on how fence pickets should be nailed. I will talk to the contractor and ask them to fix this. Any suggestions are appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted February 24 Report Share Posted February 24 29 minutes ago, JimT said: I can not post a photo directly Now that you've posted several times the "Add Files" button should be active allowing you to post jpg and pdf files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted February 24 Report Share Posted February 24 After several minutes looking at some installer videos, I don’t see anyone recommending shooting on boards where the fastener would be exposed that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted February 25 Report Share Posted February 25 @JimT, how much does the top, middle picket, overlap the two that it is overlapping. It’s hard to believe that the contractor would skimp just to save on a couple of pickets. But, a dollar here and a dollar there…. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted February 25 Report Share Posted February 25 I found this (couldn’t figure out how to select just the pic chart and paste) https://www.finehomebuilding.com/project-guides/siding-exterior-trim/how-to-install-board-and-batten-siding I’m kind of like @Tpt life in that the way they are doing it and the way the link shows, that it is for wood movement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted February 25 Report Share Posted February 25 Hey Coop, good find. That said, fences and siding behave differently due to air circulation restrictions when cladding a building. I wonder if that is why you found that pattern, but the fencing guys I found don’t push it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Z. Posted February 25 Report Share Posted February 25 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted February 25 Report Share Posted February 25 On my board and board siding, I alternated the nails in the first layer so they were hidden by the top boards. I used the same 1x6 rough cut White Oak for the horizontal nailers to use up the worst looking ones. I've pulled some of it off, and reused it, a couple of times when we added onto our house. Very few of the boards were split where a nail was. I built several houses like that in the late 1970's into the 1980's until the mill closed where I bought that Oak from. I would get a semi truck load of it for $100 a thousand straight run out of the saw logs. It's all still hard as a rock here with nothing ever put on it, but I always had a lot of overhang on the houses I built. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted February 26 Report Share Posted February 26 On the Gulf Coast, we don’t build fences like this due to tropical storm and hurricane winds. We want the winds to flow thru as much as possible. If a privacy fence is needed., the top or third board is nailed to the other side of the rails. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimT Posted February 26 Author Report Share Posted February 26 @Coop That is good to know. I am in Florida and we also have hurricane problems. But I noticed that for my neighbor's board-on-board fence, all boards are on the same side of the rails. I measured the boards. They are all about 5.5 inch in width. The gap between the first layer of boards the contract left is about 3.5-4 inch. So the overlap on each side between the two layers is about 0.75-1 inch. Sorry it seems that I still can not post any pictures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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