Home Depot Is Selling A Modern Privacy Fence At A Great Price - Is It Worth Buying?

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Using privacy fence designs to create a quiet escape in the backyard is a popular reason to purchase these items. However, privacy fence designs can be expensive (as much as $50 per linear foot installed). If you're on the lookout for a bargain to create a backyard oasis that also delivers plenty of style, Home Depot is creating interest with its Peak modular fencing system, a black aluminum-and-wood fence exclusive to Home Depot. Wood and black aluminum are a popular combination that enhances the look of a property. If the wood is pressure-treated, it helps create a durable fence that stands up to harsh weather, ultraviolet rays from the sun, and temperature extremes. Meanwhile, black aluminum resists rust and requires very little maintenance.

When you see a durable, stylish fence at Home Depot with a price of $100, you might be tempted to click "add to cart" as fast as you can. However, the $100 price is only for a single post in the Peak modular fencing system. You have to purchase brackets, screws, spacers, and pieces of wood separately, which significantly drives up the price. So, is this one of the things you should be buying at Home Depot? That depends on the actual cost of purchasing and building this modern privacy fence, and whether it's a better option than other ideas.

Understanding the actual cost of building this modular fence from Home Depot can help you decide whether it's worth buying. If you need to build 120 linear feet of fencing, you need 21 black aluminum posts. If you're attaching the posts to an existing concrete pad, you can purchase 76-inch posts for $100 each. Home Depot also offers 94-inch posts that you can bury in the ground for $85 each.

Home Depot then sells brackets separately for $4 each. These attach to each Peak fence post and hold the wood boards in place. For a 6-foot tall fence with 6 feet between posts, you'd need 12 brackets on each side of each interior post. For a 120-foot linear fence, you'd need 480 brackets. You can also use spacers with the brackets to create a uniform slat between each board as you attach it to the fence. You need 10 spacers on each side of each interior post (about 400 spacers total) for about $0.18 apiece.

If you use 12 6-foot boards between each post, you need 240 6-foot weather-treated boards for a 120-foot privacy fence. Each board costs about $13 apiece at Home Depot. Finally, you need roughly 1,000 screws to attach the boards to the brackets (which costs about $21). Considering all the materials you need, a 120-foot linear Peak modular system fence would cost almost $5,700 (about $47.50 per linear foot) for materials only.

In most cases, you can expect to pay between $10 and $50 per linear foot for a privacy fence. The top end of this price range includes the cost to hire an installer, which averages $10 to $15 per linear foot. Considering you pay about $47.50 per linear foot for all the required privacy fence materials at Home Depot, this design ranks close to the top of the range. However, because this fence has a simple design, it's possible for homeowners to DIY the installation and save money compared to hiring an installer.

If you want to save some money on a privacy fence design, you can select materials such as wood lattice, a trellis, or a mesh screen, most of which can occur as a DIY installation. You could also plant hedges to use as a privacy barrier for a lower price than the Home Depot modern fence design. Fence designs consisting of materials such as aluminum only, stone, brick, or concrete are significantly more costly per linear foot than the black aluminum-and-wood Home Depot design. It might be difficult for some of these privacy fence materials to match up to the style you receive with the Home Depot fence, though. This design is customizable, too, since you can use wood lengths between 4 and 6 feet. You can choose the type of wood board species and widths to use with the build, too.