My son has around 350 feet of fence surrounding his yard which has a lap pool. He did not maintain and stain the fence and around 1200 slats are in need of replacement, along with (40) 2 x 4s. Carpenter bees were working on it last summer and he remedied that situation, by puffing the poison into the holes and filling the damage. I guess carpenter bees look for wood that hasn't been maintained with stain or paint. We have been trying to find someone to repair the fence and only one person has come out to look at it. He quoted around $1600 for materials only and will let him know about labor costs. I am finding it hard to turn anyone up who is interested. My son works a lot of hours and asked me if I could do some of the legwork for him.

He is starting to think about replacing the whole fence after looking at panels at Lowe's. He said that some of the panels are warped in Lowe's and you would have to pick and choose good panels. I suppose that most self employed contractors use places like Lowe's, Home Depot and Menards to buy their fencing panels. Bona fide fence contractors who only do fences might use better materials, all with a probable higher cost. Can anyone weigh in on their fence experiences and give us pointers

on what to be looking for, and what to avoid? He just doesn't want to make a costly mistake.