How to make a fence panel last five extra years in Sandwich

The problem the sea air causes

Sandwich sits three miles inland from Pegwell Bay and less than that from Sandwich Bay proper. The prevailing wind is off the sea, and it carries a salt load - not enough to rust modern galvanised fixings on day one, but enough to accelerate every rot, every splinter and every board-cup on a timber fence over the course of a decade. The good news is that maintenance is not complicated. Fifteen minutes twice a year and a couple of hours every second summer will genuinely add five years to a panel that would otherwise be gone.

Spring - the ten-minute walk

First warm weekend of the year, walk the fence with a screwdriver in one hand. You are looking for four things.

• Loose fixings at the top of each panel where it meets the post. That is the wind-loading fatigue point. Nail or screw back in.
• Cupped or split boards where sun and salt have got in. A cracked board on a lap panel is not urgent yet, but note it - it will be the one that goes in the autumn gale.
• Post base rot - poke the screwdriver into the timber at the ground line. If it goes in more than 3mm, the post is on its last two winters and now is the time to price up a replacement, not February when the ground is frozen.
• Vegetation contact - anything living growing against the panel. Ivy, jasmine, honeysuckle, a bramble that got away. Holding moisture against the board is the fastest way to rot it. Cut back with 100mm of air gap.

Autumn - the treatment coat

Late September, dry week, before the first real storm. If your fence has not had a coat of preservative or stain in two summers, this is the weekend. A litre of treatment covers around 6-8 square metres depending on how thirsty the timber is. Two coats on any board that looks bleached out, one on the rest. Do the arris rails and the post as well as the boards. Do the back of the fence too if you can get to it - it faces the neighbour and never sees the sun, which is exactly why it goes first.

Treatment types worth knowing. Water-based preservative is the low-effort default - it soaks in, does not smell for long, and is fine every two years. Oil-based stain looks nicer and lasts three to four years but is more work. Coloured treatment (the "shed and fence" tin colour) is water-based with pigment - fine, does the job, be honest that you are choosing look over ultimate protection.

Once every three years - the boards themselves

On a lap or overlap panel fence, once every three years, hammer any nail heads back down that have worked out, and screw a replacement fixing next to any that have gone through the timber entirely. This is a fifteen-minute job with a hammer and a box of galvanised ring-shank nails but it makes the difference between a panel that stays put in a gale and a panel that flies into next door's greenhouse.

What maintenance doesn't fix

Rot at the post base. Once the timber has gone soft below the ground line, no amount of coating fixes it - the wet is coming from beneath. That is a repair or replacement conversation, not a maintenance one. Same for a panel that has been snapped by an impact, or a run where the concrete gravel board has cracked and started to spread. Neither of those get better with treatment. Read when to replace vs repair for the honest call.

Local note

If you are on the Sandwich Bay side, or on any of the plot boundaries facing the marsh, do the autumn coat one week earlier every year. The wind gets to bare timber faster on that side and the paint window is shorter. Inside the walled town, you have more forgiveness - sheltered air, less salt load, less UV on the shaded side.