Emma Butcher
Jan 07 2026
Lancaster really combines the best of rural Ohio with the amenities and convenience of a suburb. We have that historic, small-town charm downtown near the Glass Museum, but hop on Route 33, and you’re in the bustle of Columbus in thirty minutes. We have the flatlands to the north and the stunning, rugged foothills of Hocking Hills starting right in our backyard at Mount Pleasant. It’s the best of both worlds.
It’s also a great place to own a home with a yard. But maintaining that yard? That’s where the romance often dies.
There’s a specific cycle every homeowner goes through. It starts with a sunny Saturday morning and a trip to the hardware store. You look at the lumber prices…you look at a YouTube tutorial…and you think, “I got this. How hard can it be?”
Fast forward three weeks. There’s a pile of dirt killing your grass, three crooked posts mocking you from the ground, and your lower back feels like it’s fused into a solid block of concrete.
If you’re staring at your backyard right now trying to decide between a DIY adventure or calling a Lancaster fence company, let’s save you some ibuprofen. You don’t need a sign from the universe; you just need to recognize the symptoms.
Here are five tell-tale signs that your project is too big for a weekend warrior and needs a professional touch.
Be honest with yourself: How long do you actually think this will take?
When you watch professional installers do it, it looks fast. But that’s because a professional crew arrives with specialized equipment, an experienced team, and a plan. When you do it yourself, you’re usually working with a rented auger that fights you every inch of the way, a shovel, and a friend who’s tired of hearing you complain.
In Lancaster, the ground is deceptive. The soil downtown near the Fairgrounds might be soft, but if you’re up near the ridges or out towards Berne Township, you’re going to hit sandstone, clay, and roots.
If you’re doing the math and realizing that digging the holes alone is going to take four consecutive Saturdays, you need to call a Lancaster fence builder.
We don’t measure jobs in weekends. We measure them in hours. Because we bring the heavy artillery to handle the digging, we can often finish a job in 48 hours that would take a homeowner a month of Sundays to complete. Your time off is valuable—don’t spend all of it fighting with a post-hole digger.
We aren’t on the coast, but anyone who has lived through a spring storm in Fairfield County knows the wind doesn’t mess around in these valleys.
One of the most common sights in our neighborhoods after a storm isn’t downed trees—it’s white vinyl fence panels lying flat on the grass. This happens because Big-Box Store vinyl fencing is often designed for light-duty use. It’s held together with shallow channels or even glue! When a 50mph gust hits a solid privacy panel, it acts like a sail. If the rails aren’t engineered to hold it, the pickets scatter like matchsticks.
If you’re tired of playing “fetch” with your fence panels, stop throwing good money after bad. A professional Lancaster fence installation uses material engineered for wind load. At Superior Fence & Rail, we use custom designed vinyl that’s heavier than industry standard and comes with specialized engineering features for stability. The pickets sit deeper in the rail, meaning the wind has to work a lot harder to blow them out. It’s the difference between a fence that rattles and a fence that stands firm.
“I think the line is by that old maple tree where the previous owner stopped mowing…”
That sentence has started more neighborhood wars than anything else in suburbia. Lancaster is an old city. Some of our property lines go back generations. Just because the previous owner mowed the grass to a certain spot doesn’t mean you own it.
If you build a fence one foot over the line onto your neighbor’s property, they can legally make you tear it down. And trust us, tearing down a fence you just paid for is the most expensive home improvement project in the world.
When you hire a pro, we take the guesswork out of the equation. Superior Fence & Rail can help coordinate property pins, recommend trusted land surveyors, and ensure the fence is built exactly where it belongs. We also know the local setbacks—like how far back from the sidewalk you have to be in the city limits versus out in the township. Don’t risk a lawsuit just to save a few bucks on a survey.
This is the “Lancaster Lean.”
Because we are in the foothills, very few yards here are perfectly flat. When you buy pre-made fence panels from a store, they are square. When you put a square panel on a sloped yard, you have to “step” it down the hill like a staircase.
This leaves massive triangular gaps at the bottom of every panel.
A professional installer doesn’t use pre-made panels on a hill. We “rack” the fence. This means we build the fence to flow with the contour of the ground. The rail follows the slope, but the pickets stay perfectly straight up and down. It looks custom, it looks clean, and it keeps your dog inside where he belongs.
There’s a difference between putting up a fence because you have to (to keep the dog in) and putting up a fence because you want to (to make the house look amazing).
If you’re driving through the nicer subdivisions north of town and feeling envious of those elegant black aluminum fences or the crisp, clean vinyl privacy lines, realize that you probably can’t achieve that look with a DIY kit.
Superior Fence & Rail’s fence types are different.
If you’re investing in your home’s value, don’t skimp on the frame. A professionally installed fence from a reputable fence company in Lancaster is an asset that appraisers notice. A crooked DIY job is a liability that buyers will ask you to fix.
Here’s the bottom line: You could build your own fence. You could also cut your own hair or perform your own dentistry. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Your backyard should be a place where you relax with a cold drink, not a place that reminds you of back pain and lost weekends. Let a professional fence contractor handle the rocks, the roots, the wind, and the permits. You just handle the grill.
Contact Superior Fence & Rail of Columbus today to schedule your free estimate for your Lancaster home. We’ll get it done right, and we’ll get it done fast.
Great Fences Make Great Neighbors!
Your Superior Fence and Rail service team is standing by! Get a fence installation quote today!
