Kent Fence Questions, Answered

Inside Kent city limits, the City of Kent's permit page lists fences 7 feet high or less among projects that do not need a building permit. In unincorporated King County the exemption stops at 6 feet, and taller fences must meet the parcel's zoning setbacks. Neither exemption overrides zoning height limits or the corner-lot sight-distance rule, and neighbouring cities on the service-areas page set their own thresholds.

On a residential corner lot, Kent City Code 15.08.130 keeps a sight triangle clear: nothing between two and a half and ten feet above the street centerline grade inside the area bounded by the two street lines and a line joining points twenty feet back from the corner. Outside that triangle the normal height rules apply. The city's engineering staff can confirm the sight-distance requirement for a specific corner.

Only by agreement in a Kent subdivision. Washington's fence statute, chapter 16.60 RCW, sits in the livestock title: RCW 16.60.020 makes a neighbour pay half the value of a boundary fence they later use to enclose their own land, and RCW 16.60.030 lets an owner require a neighbour to build half of a partition fence. Those were written for pasture. For a backyard privacy fence, cost-sharing is a written agreement or nothing.

A fence on the line is shared in practice, and the neighbour has a say in its style and a claim on its future. A fence set a few inches inside your own line is entirely yours. Either way, locate the line first: a fence that sits over the boundary for ten years is the fact pattern behind an adverse-possession claim under RCW 4.16.020, and the old fence's position is not evidence of where the line is. More on the replacement page.

Cedar costs about $10 a foot less to install and looks like a Northwest fence; it needs stain every two to three years and its posts rot at the soil line unless they are set on steel or drained gravel. Vinyl does not absorb water, never needs stain, and regional installers rate it at 20 to 30 years or longer, but it fades slowly and grows the same moss on a north face. The longer you will own the fence, the better vinyl's arithmetic looks.

East Hill and West Hill sit on Alderwood glacial till: a gravelly loam over a cemented hardpan about three feet down that barely drains. Winter rain perches on the hardpan and moves sideways, so the base of a post in a concrete collar stands in water from November to March. The rot starts in the band where the concrete meets the soil, which is why steel post-on-pipe and gravel-drained footings are the standard upgrade on Kent bids.

Fence contractors working the Puget Sound lowlands set residential posts 36 to 42 inches deep, with the gate and corner posts heaviest. On East Hill that reaches the hardpan, which bears well; on the valley floor the silt is soft and some crews go deeper or widen the footing. Six inches of clean gravel under the footing and a concrete collar crowned to shed water are the details that keep the base dry.

Late spring through early fall is the easy season: dry holes, cedar that can weather and take stain, and crews that are booked further out. Winter builds are possible and sometimes cheaper, but a valley-floor lot in January can have footing holes filling with groundwater, and new cedar set in the wet will wait months for its first coat. Booking a summer build in March is the usual way to get the date you want.

Most residential fence jobs in Kent take two to four working days on site: tear-out, posts set and left to cure overnight, then rails, boards or panels, and gates. The old fence is hauled to the transfer station by the contractor, usually priced at about $3 to $7 a foot or folded into the per-foot number. Old concrete footings are broken out or the new holes are offset to miss them. Per-foot ranges for each material are in the cost guide.