A realistic DIY fence weekend, hour-by-hour for 150 feet
Every DIY fence post tutorial assumes you have infinite time and perfect weather. Mine didn't. I built 150 linear feet of 6ft cedar privacy fence with my brother over a long weekend in May 2024. Here's the actual hour-by-hour breakdown, snags and all.
Context: flat ground, Texas soil (mix of clay and sandy loam, not rocky), one walk gate, property line already surveyed. This is the easiest version of this job.
Friday evening, pickup and prep (3 hours)
5:30pm. Home Depot run. 80 cedar pickets (6ft, dog-ear, $6.45 each), 20 4x4 pressure-treated posts (8ft, $14.80 each), 60 2x4 cedar rails (8ft, $7.25 each), 24 bags of Quikrete fast-setting, Simpson Strong-Tie Z-Max post caps, 5lb of stainless deck screws, and a bag of gravel. Total bill: $1,680. Took 90 minutes to load two trucks because the lumber aisle was a mess.
7pm. Unload at the house. Stack pickets on plastic sheeting so they don't suck up ground moisture overnight. Posts next to the fence line. Concrete bags on a pallet by the driveway.
8pm. String the fence line with mason's line between the corner pins. Mark post locations with white spray paint every 8 feet. This is the single most important step and I rushed it at first; my brother caught a 14-inch deviation on post 7 and we re-strung the whole thing. Cost us an hour.
9pm. Call it a night. Tomorrow's going to be long.
Saturday, post day (10 hours)
7am. Rent a two-man gas auger from Home Depot ($95 for the day). Gas up at the station.
8am. Start augering post holes. Two-man auger + clay soil = surprisingly fast. 30 seconds per hole. But we hit a tree root on post 9 and spent 25 minutes with a pickaxe chopping through it. Post 14 hit something that felt like a buried concrete pier from a previous fence; we moved the post 6 inches and re-strung that section.
11am. All 20 holes dug. Most are 24-28 inches deep. A few are 30 because the clay was crumbly. Drop 2 inches of pea gravel in each hole for drainage.
11:30am. Lunch. Tacos from the truck at the corner. A local contractor stopped by (he'd seen the auger) and gave us 15 minutes of advice about crowning the concrete. Worth every minute.
12:30pm. Set first post. Corner post, extra concrete (2 bags), plumb checked with a 4ft level on two adjacent faces, braced with temporary 2x4s. Hit with water from the hose. Moved to next post.
12:45pm. Second post went smoother. Getting the rhythm.
2pm. Posts 1-8 set. Took roughly 10 minutes each. Corner and gate posts got two bags of Quikrete; line posts got one. Strained my lower back lifting the 8ft posts; should have used a post-lifting jig from the start.
4pm. All 20 posts set. Re-checked plumb on each one now that they'd had 40-90 minutes to cure. Two were slightly off; nudged them back with gentle mallet taps before they fully hardened. After 4pm, they were locked in. Any post not plumb at this point was staying that way.
4:30pm. Return the auger to Home Depot (or pay for a second day; we decided to return since rails and pickets don't need it).
5:30pm. Back at the house. Cleaned up spilled concrete, swept the work area, started marking post heights. Every post marked at 6ft above grade with a pencil line. We'd trim them all to match after rails went on.
6pm. Done. Beer. Dinner. Watched the sunset over 20 vertical cedar posts sticking up out of the ground like a weird modern art installation. Ready for rails and pickets tomorrow.
Sunday, rails and pickets (9 hours)
7am. Started with rails. Three 2x4 cedar rails per section: top, middle, bottom. Attach to posts with 3-inch stainless deck screws, two screws per rail-to-post connection. DeWalt 20V impact driver did the work. Bosch driver took over when the DeWalt battery died around hour 3.
10am. Rails on all sections. One section needed a custom-cut rail (the run wasn't an exact multiple of 8ft). Took 20 minutes with the circular saw to cut and fit.
10:30am. Started pickets. Two pickets per screw set, pre-cut to length (6ft from Home Depot are actually 5' 11-3/4"; we decided that was close enough and didn't trim). Started at one end of the longest run.
2pm. All pickets up on the main runs. Took a break. Heat hit 92 degrees and we were out of water. Cooler of Gatorade and sandwiches saved the day.
3pm. Trimmed post tops to match picket height. Added Simpson Strong-Tie copper-coated post caps. Just decorative, but they look good and shed water off the post top.
3:30pm. Started the walk gate. Pre-built gate kit from Home Depot ($145) with heavy-duty Z-Max hinges and a latch kit. Hung it on a doubled 4x4 gate post (two posts bolted together for rigidity). Leveled, tested swing, adjusted hinges twice to stop a slight drag.
4:30pm. Gate swinging clean. Stepped back. 150 linear feet of new 6ft cedar fence with one walk gate, two tired guys, one almost-dead impact driver, and a yard that now looks like a yard.
5pm. Cleanup. Swept concrete spills. Hauled scrap lumber to the truck for a dump run Monday. Swept sawdust off the new deck. Beer number two.
What it actually cost
- Materials from Home Depot: $1,680
- Auger rental: $95
- Fuel: $14
- Gate kit: $145
- Post caps: $60
- Misc hardware and stain (later): $180
- Food, drinks, and a bag of ice: $85
Total: about $2,260 for 150 linear feet of 6ft cedar with walk gate. Contractor quote for the same build was $4,400, so we saved about $2,140. Split between two guys, that's $1,070 each for 22 hours of work. $48 an hour for hot, dusty, back-breaking physical labor. Worth it for the satisfaction and the cost savings. Not worth it if I had a contract to bill those hours at my day job.
Snags that will probably hit you
Tree roots on the property line. You'll hit at least one. Have a pickaxe and a reciprocating saw ready.
A post location that hits something buried. Old fence, concrete pier, big rock. Move the post 6 inches. Re-string the line. Lose 20 minutes.
A dead power tool battery. Have at least two batteries for your impact driver, pre-charged. Better yet, have two impact drivers.
Weather. If rain is forecast for day 2, accelerate day 1. Wet pickets warp as they dry. Wet concrete weakens the set.
Sore muscles on day 2. Ibuprofen. Stretching. More ibuprofen.
Budget two full weekends for 150 linear feet. If it goes faster, great. If it takes three weekends, normal. Nobody finishes fence DIY in less time than planned.
Tools you actually need
- Two-man gas auger (rent, $80-$110/day)
- Wolverine post hole digger for detail work
- DeWalt or Bosch impact driver (two if possible)
- 4ft level
- Mason's line and stakes
- Circular saw with fine-tooth blade
- Reciprocating saw for root cutting
- Wheelbarrow for concrete and debris
- Pickaxe for roots and buried surprises
Use the calculator
Run your numbers through the FenceCalc estimator with DIY selected for a materials-only estimate. The calculator won't tell you whether your back can handle two weekends of post digging; only you know that. But it will tell you whether the cost savings justify the effort.
Related: how to set fence posts properly, pre-dig checklist, the complete fence cost guide.