Wood Fence Installation
Wood fencing in Northridge, California
Around here the backyard boundary is a cedar or redwood fence, and has been since the ranch tracts went up. Ours run straight across the flat lots, sit on footings sized for this alluvial soil, and take the Northridge sun without going gray inside a season.
Why homeowners choose wood here
These ranch tracts were laid out around an easygoing backyard, and real wood still suits that better than anything else on the shelf. Cedar or redwood buys a full six feet of privacy, it looks right against the mid-century houses off Nordhoff and against the bigger Northridge Estates lots alike, and across a long run it lands under vinyl or iron on price. Wood also bends to a custom look more willingly than the rest, whether you want a good-neighbor board-on-board face, a lattice cap, or clean horizontal slats on a remodeled elevation.
What you trade for that is maintenance. A stain or seal every two to three years is what holds the color against the strong Northridge sun. Leave it bare and the boards silver out, and a few will check or cup along the way. Anyone who wants to forget the fence exists usually ends up on vinyl. Anyone who wants the warmth, and does not mind a weekend with a sprayer every so often, stays on wood. Most tracts here answer to no HOA, so the choice really is yours, and both sides get laid out plainly.
Cedar, redwood, and the styles that show up here
Nearly every wood fence we put up in Northridge is western red cedar or construction-heart redwood. Rot and insects give both a much wider berth than they give pine, stain goes on evenly, and neither breaks down in the dry heat the way a cheaper wood does. Style choices around here come down to four:
- Dog-ear or flat-top privacy. The plain six foot backyard run, boards pushed tight against each other so nothing shows through.
- Board on board (good neighbor). Boards overlapped so each side reads as the finished side, which settles a lot of arguments on a shared line.
- Lattice or trellis top. An open cap over the solid section, buying height and light without another foot of wall.
- Horizontal slat. The cleaner modern face, and it sits well on the remodeled ranch homes around CSUN.
Style is the part you look at. The posts are the part that decides how long any of it lasts. Pressure-treated or steel posts go into concrete footings sized to the run, because a wood fence gives out at the post well before it gives out at the panel.
Footings that hold on Northridge soil
This is where a Northridge wood fence is won or lost. The ground here is deep alluvial soil, and Northridge is the town the 1994 quake is named for, so the ground moves more here than it does over bedrock. A post set in a shallow or skinny footing picks up every bit of that movement and starts to lean within a few years. We size each footing to the fence height and the run, dig to a proper depth, and compact the base so the concrete has something solid to sit on. On the flat tracts we also plan the drainage, because level ground holds water against a post if you let it, and standing water is what rots the base.
None of this shows once the fence is up, which is exactly why it gets skipped by the cheapest bids. It is also the difference between a fence that is still plumb in fifteen years and one that needs a post reset in five.
Wood and the Northridge sun
Summers here sit at 95 to 105 degrees for long stretches, and that UV is the main thing that ages a wood fence. Bare cedar or redwood will gray and can check as the surface dries out. The fix is not exotic: a quality penetrating stain or sealer when the fence is new, then again every two to three years, keeps the color and slows the drying. We can finish the fence for you at install or hand it over raw if you would rather do it yourself. If even that upkeep sounds like too much, that is the honest moment to look at vinyl, which holds its color through the same summers with no sealer at all.
Wood fence pricing in Northridge
| Run length | Installed range | Where it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| 75 linear ft | $2,250 to $4,500 | A side yard, or a short back line |
| 150 linear ft | $4,500 to $9,000 | The standard ranch-tract backyard |
| 250 linear ft | $7,500 to $15,000 | A bigger Northridge Estates lot, or a full perimeter |
Posts, panels, hardware, and labor already sit inside those figures. Hauling off an old fence, stepping up to lattice or board-on-board, premium redwood, and gates all push toward the top. The full breakdown lives on our Northridge fence cost guide.
Put a number on your wood fence
Walking your Northridge property line is where the soil, the drainage, and the footing size get settled. What you keep afterward is a fixed written quote. No charge either way.
Get my free estimateWood fence questions
How much does a wood fence cost in Northridge?
Count on $30 to $60 per linear foot installed for wood fencing here. Run six foot cedar or redwood privacy across 150 feet and the total usually settles between $4,500 and $9,000, shifting with the grade of wood, the gates in the run, and whether an old fence has to come out first. Flat tracts mean the labor goes into clean post holes and solid footings instead of into slope work.
What wood holds up best in the Northridge heat?
Two woods earn the recommendation: western red cedar and construction-heart redwood. Rot bothers them less than it bothers pine, they take the dry 95 to 105 degree summers without falling apart, and stain sits well on both. Reseal every two to three years and you hold the color while slowing down the checking that strong Northridge sun works into any wood fence.
Will a wood fence stay straight on Northridge soil?
It will if the footings are right. Northridge sits on deep alluvial soil near the 1994 epicenter, and ground here moves more than bedrock, so we set posts in properly sized, well-compacted concrete footings rather than shallow ones. That is the single thing that keeps a wood run plumb over the years on this ground.
Do I need HOA approval for a wood fence in Northridge?
Usually not. Most Northridge tracts are not in an HOA, so a standard six foot wood fence in the side or rear yard is your call as the homeowner, within the City of Los Angeles height rules. If your specific tract does have a review board we will build that step into the schedule, but for most streets here it does not apply.
Related pages
The main guide to Northridge fence and gate installers pulls all of this into one page.