How the material comparison works
The lifetime stack
Wood is cheapest installed and the only one that needs painting — amortize maintenance and one board-replacement cycle (~15–20 years for pickets) and the gap to vinyl narrows to the point where taste decides. Vinyl never needs stain but cracks in impacts and its posts fail ugly rather than leaky. Chain-link is the economy and utility king with zero curb appeal votes in most neighborhoods.
What actually breaks
- Wood: posts (ground contact) and bottom rails rot first — steel-post wood-fence hybrids fix the expensive failure and keep the cheap one.
- Vinyl: thermal movement needs proper screw tolerances; a neighbor's soccer ball costs a panel, not a can of stain.
- Chain-link: nothing breaks for decades; the cost is aesthetic and it is real.
Reading the comparison
The calculator totals installed cost plus maintenance over your horizon and shows cost per foot per year — the number that survives negotiating. Remember the boundary lesson: whatever you build, build it inside a surveyed line with neighborly conversation first. Fences are the only project where a good result can still lose a lawsuit.