A fence that holds the line and stands up to the seasons

Often on both counts. Many cities require a permit for a new fence and set height limits — commonly around 4 feet in front yards and 6 to 8 feet in back — along with sight-visibility rules near street corners and driveways. If you belong to a homeowners association, it may separately dictate approved styles, materials, colors, and setbacks, and building without that sign-off can mean being ordered to take the fence back down. Both approvals are worth securing in writing before any work starts.

Not from the old fence, the sidewalk, or where a neighbor believes it runs — any of those can be off by several feet. The reliable answer is your property survey or plat together with the iron pins set at the corners, which a metal detector can sometimes locate. If the pins are missing or the boundary is at all unclear, hiring a licensed surveyor before digging is far cheaper than moving a finished fence, and it protects you if a neighbor later disputes the line. Building slightly inside your own line is a common way to sidestep the argument entirely.

The convention, and in many places the local code, is good-neighbor etiquette: the finished side — the one without exposed posts and rails — faces your neighbors and the street, leaving the framed side on your own property. Some jurisdictions require this outright, and an HOA may as well. A true good-neighbor or shadowbox design avoids the issue by looking the same from both sides. It is also worth a conversation with the adjoining owner, since a shared boundary fence can sometimes be split in cost.

A common rule of thumb is about a third of the post's above-ground height in the ground, but in cold climates frost depth governs. Posts should reach below the local frost line — which can run a foot or two down in northern states and deeper still in the coldest ones — so the seasonal freeze-thaw cycle cannot heave them upward and tilt the fence. Setting posts in concrete with gravel at the base for drainage, and going deeper on gate and corner posts that carry more load, is what keeps a fence standing straight through the winters.

It comes down to how much has failed and why. A few cracked pickets, a sagging gate, or one or two leaning posts are usually a straightforward repair, and resetting a post costs far less than a new run. Replacement starts to make sense when posts are rotting at the soil line across the whole fence, when many panels are warped or broken, or when the structure is simply near the end of its expected life — patching a fence that is failing everywhere tends to be money spent twice. Age, the share of posts still sound, and whether the style still suits the property are the deciding questions.