A mate of mine bought an exposed section up in Tawa a couple of years back, right where the gully funnels the northerly straight off the harbour. He put up a nice 1.8-metre paling fence — a straightforward timber boundary fence — for a bit of privacy, and by the second winter half of it was leaning like a drunk on a Friday. I do this for a living, pouring concrete and building footings, based down in Dunedin, so people don’t normally ring me about fences. But I’ve poured enough post footings over the years to know exactly where these jobs go wrong, and it’s almost never the timber up top. It’s what’s happening at ground level, and it’s the wind.
Wind is the real load, not the neighbours
Most people plan a fence around privacy and forget it’s basically a sail bolted to two rows of timber posts. A solid 1.8m fence on an exposed Tawa section — or any of the gully suburbs around Wellington, Johnsonville and Khandallah included — can take a genuine hammering when the northerly or a southerly change comes through. That force doesn’t disappear. It travels into the posts, then the footings, then the ground, and if any one link in that chain is undersized, the whole run starts to move.
Before you price up timber, work out how exposed the section really is. Wellington sits across high and very high wind zones under the building code, and that classification decides your post spacing, your footing depth, and sometimes whether you need a building consent at all. The Building Performance guidance from MBIE lays out the wind zones and the point — usually a fence over 2m to 2.5m — where you tip into consent territory. It’s a five-minute read and it saves you building something that has to come down.
Posts and footings — where fences actually fail
This is my patch, so I’ll be blunt about it: on an exposed section, undersized footings are the number one reason fences fail early, not bad timber, not bad workmanship, just a footing that was never going to hold against real wind load. Here’s what I actually build to on a 1.8m fence in a high-wind spot:
| Spec | What I build to on an exposed 1.8m fence |
|---|---|
| Post spacing | 2.4m centres (not the lazy 2.7m default) |
| Footing depth | 600mm minimum, 750mm on exposed corners |
| Concrete mix | 17.5 or 20 MPa, domed at the top so water runs off the collar |
| Timber treatment | H4 or H5 treated posts in-ground, H3.2 above ground |
| Corner posts | 125×125, or braced back to a return fence |
Depth beats width every time for resisting the lever action of wind on a post — that’s just physics, not opinion. And corners take the worst of it, which is why I’ll upsize them or brace back to a return fence on the most exposed run, the same trick you’d use bracing an exposed deck.
Solid palings vs slatted — what actually holds up
The instinct is to build a solid wall for privacy, but a fully solid fence catches every bit of wind going and puts maximum strain on the footings underneath it. There’s a smarter middle ground once you’ve seen enough of these fail:
- Slatted or louvre panels with a small gap let a percentage of the wind through, cutting the load while still blocking sightlines. On a bad section, that gap is the difference between a fence that lasts and one that racks.
- Baffle or lattice top on an otherwise solid fence takes the pressure off the top rail, which is where a lot of the leverage sits.
- Vertical shadowbox (palings alternating each side) gives near-total privacy from straight on while still breathing a little.
If wind is genuinely more of a problem than privacy, planting on the windward side does half the work before the fence even has to. I’ve seen it done well — there’s a good rundown in our piece on landscaping a windy Wellington section, and it pairs nicely with a lower, sturdier fence rather than a tall solid one.
What it actually costs to build one that stays up
Numbers, since that’s what most people actually want to know:
| Fence type | Cost per metre (incl. GST) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Standard timber paling, professionally built | $300–$450 | Exposed Tawa-type sections land at the upper end because of beefier footings and closer post spacing |
| Louvre or aluminium-slat system | $450–$700 | Higher material cost, lower wind load on the structure |
| DIY paling fence, materials only | $150–$220 | I’d think hard before skimping on footings here to save a few dollars — that’s the bit you can’t fix later |
Get at least two written quotes, and make sure they spell out footing depth and post spacing, not just the timber profile you’re getting. If a quote doesn’t mention either number, that’s your warning sign.
What people ask me about fencing an exposed section
How deep should fence posts go on a windy Wellington section? At least 600mm for a standard 1.8m fence, and I’d go 750mm on exposed corners in a high-wind zone. Depth resists the leverage of wind far better than a wide, shallow footing — width doesn’t buy you much once the wind is actually pushing on the panel.
Do I need a building consent for a fence in Tawa? Usually not for a fence up to 2m, but taller structures, or fences doubling as pool or retaining barriers, can trigger consent. Check the wind zone and the exemption rules before you build — Wellington’s classifications are strict, and it’s a lot cheaper to check first than to pull a fence down afterwards.
Is a solid fence or a slatted fence better for wind? Slatted or louvre fencing handles wind better because it lets some airflow through, reducing the load on the posts and footings below ground. A fully solid 1.8m fence acts like a sail and puts far more strain on the structure holding it up.
Can a leaning fence be fixed, or does the whole run need rebuilding? Depends on the footing. If a post has pulled its footing loose in the ground, digging out and repouring just that one post rarely holds for long, because the ground around it has already been disturbed. On a genuinely exposed run — like the one my mate built in Tawa — I’d rather redo the whole windward line with proper footings than patch one post and have the next one go the following winter. On the Canterbury plains the wind loading is relentless enough that a Christchurch fencing contractor will often repour a whole run rather than chase one post.