Double Picket Aluminum Fence in DeBary, Florida
- FenceBlack aluminum, double picket spacing
- LocationDeBary, Volusia County, Florida
- Built forSmall dogs and open sight lines
- Site notesRun set around a mature oak and its roots
Double picket is the style with a second, tighter row of pickets through the lower section. Stand back and it looks like an ordinary black aluminum fence. Get close and you can see the gaps down low are roughly half the width of the gaps up top, which is the entire point of it.
That narrower spacing is what stops a small dog walking straight through a fence you just paid for. Standard aluminum picket spacing is generous enough that a terrier or a young cat treats it as a doorway. This DeBary run solves that without going solid, so the yard keeps its light and its view while still holding what it needs to hold.
The rest of the job is conventional black aluminum: powder coated sections, posts set in concrete, and a gate on the open side of the property. What makes it worth showing is where it goes. The line runs directly past a mature oak, and that single tree drove most of the layout decisions on site.
What does double picket spacing actually change?
It closes the gap without closing the view. On a standard aluminum panel the pickets sit far enough apart that anything smaller than a medium dog can get a head and shoulders through, and once the head goes through the rest follows. The double picket panel adds an extra picket between each pair on the bottom section only, which narrows those lower gaps and leaves the upper part of the fence as open as it ever was.
That is why it is the usual pick for households with small breeds, and it is also common where a yard backs onto shared ground, as this one does. There is a sports court fence visible through the panels in the first photo. Aluminum reads as a boundary in that setting without turning the yard into a box. Our aluminum fence installation covers the spacing and height choices, and the DeBary fence contractors page has more on working in this area.
How do you build a fence line right against an oak?
Carefully, and by moving the posts rather than cutting the roots. The oak in the first photo sits so close to the line that the fence effectively runs through its root zone. Under a canopy that size the structural roots spread wide and shallow, often within the first foot or two of soil, and severing one so a post hole lands on a tidy number is a trade nobody should take.
So the bay spacing shifts. Aluminum is forgiving here in a way solid panels are not, because a picket section can be cut down on site to close an odd bay and it still looks correct once it is up. You can see the result along the base of that tree, where the fence sits tight to the trunk on fresh fill and holds its line. Grade gets handled the same way. Aluminum racks, meaning the panel flexes to follow a slope without stepping, which keeps the bottom rail close to the ground across uneven yards. Working around what is already growing on a lot is a normal part of fence installation here.
Why aluminum instead of wood or vinyl here?
Because of what it does not do. Aluminum does not rust, which rules out the failure mode that ends most steel and wrought iron fences in Florida, and the powder coat carries the color rather than a paint film that peels. There is no annual maintenance beyond a rinse. On a property like this one, with mature landscaping and irrigation running most days, that is not a small thing.
It is also the honest answer when a homeowner wants a boundary but not a wall. Solid panels here would cut the light under the oak, hide the planting beds, and make the lot feel smaller than it is. Aluminum keeps all of that and still defines the line clearly. Where a pool is involved it does more, because a four foot aluminum panel with a self closing and self latching gate is the standard way to meet Florida's residential pool barrier requirements. Ask us to confirm the current code for your specific enclosure before you order. There is a companion run in our DeBary black aluminum fence with an arched gate project.
Have a small dog and an open yard in DeBary?
Double picket is usually the answer, and we can show you the spacing in person before you commit to it. Call Byers Fence at (386) 457-2045 for a free written estimate.