Wood Fence Installation in Kent, WA
Western red cedar is what most Kent backyards are fenced with, and for good reason. The part of the job that separates a fence that lasts from one that leans by its sixth winter is buried, and this page is about that part.
What a Cedar Fence Costs and How Long It Lasts Here
Two numbers frame every cedar quote in Kent: the per-foot price and the number of winters the posts will survive.
Western red cedar is Kent's standard wood fence, about $35 to $65 per linear foot installed at 6 feet. Lifespan is decided at the posts: steel post-on-pipe or gravel-drained footings reach 20 years or more; posts set in bare concrete on wet hardpan often fail in ten to fifteen.
The range comes from the published pricing of fence contractors serving King County in 2026; one Kent-focused installer lists cedar at $45 to $85 per foot for its own premium build, so a bid above $65 is not automatically padded. The lifespan figures come from the same trade, and the installers who explain the shorter ones point at moisture drawn up into wood sitting in wet soil.
Why cedar and not pressure-treated fir
Cedar heartwood carries its own rot-resisting oils, it stays straighter than fir as it dries, and it takes stain evenly. Pressure-treated posts are cheaper and often go under cedar boards for that reason. What cedar does not do is survive ground contact indefinitely, and the sapwood at the edges of a board has almost none of the heartwood's resistance.
The three common Kent styles
The 6-foot solid privacy fence, dog-ear boards butted edge to edge on two or three rails, is the East Hill default and the cheapest cedar style per foot. Board-on-board, with overlapping pickets so the gaps close as the wood shrinks, costs more and stays private in year five when the plain style has opened up. Picket and split-rail run 3 to 4 feet, cost less in material, and show up on the larger lots toward Black Diamond and Maple Valley where the fence marks a line rather than hides a yard.
The Post Is the Fence
Everything above grade on a cedar fence can be replaced a board at a time. The posts cannot, which is why the spec sheet on a Kent bid should be read from the bottom up.
- Depth. Fence contractors working the Puget Sound lowlands set residential posts 36 to 42 inches deep. On East Hill that puts the bottom of the hole at or into the Alderwood hardpan, which is firm to bear on and slow to drain.
- Post-on-pipe. A galvanized steel pipe is set in the concrete and the cedar post is bracketed to it above grade, so no wood touches soil. Several regional installers now build this way as standard on sloped and wet lots, and it is the single upgrade most worth paying for in Kent.
- Gravel under the footing. Where a wood post does go into the ground, six inches of clean three-quarter-inch gravel below it and a concrete collar crowned to shed water keeps the base out of the perched winter water that sits on the hardpan.
Ask each bidder what the post is, how deep it goes, and what it sits on. Two quotes $12 a foot apart usually differ in those three answers.
How the Job Runs on a Kent Lot
- Line and layout. The contractor confirms the property line, flags utilities, and on a corner lot lays out the twenty-foot sight triangle that Kent City Code 15.08.130 keeps clear between two and a half and ten feet of height.
- Tear-out. The old fence comes down and goes to the dump, usually priced at a few dollars a foot on top of the build.
- Posts. Holes are dug or augered, footings set, posts plumbed and braced. Concrete cures overnight before anything hangs on it.
- Rails, boards, gates. Rails go on, pickets are fastened with stainless or hot-dip galvanized fasteners so the cedar does not streak black, and gates are hung last on the posts that were set heaviest.
- Finish. New cedar should weather a few weeks to a couple of months before its first stain or sealer; after that, a coat every two to three years is the maintenance a cedar fence asks for in this climate.