A customer asks how long the fence will last. He is told fifteen years. Six years later it is grey, soft at the base and leaning, and he is on the phone convinced he was sold something defective.
Nobody ever mentioned that fifteen years assumed it would be treated. It has been rained on and ignored since the day it went up.
The checklist
Publish these and the year six conversation never happens.
1. The honest lifespan range
With the conditions attached. Maintained and unmaintained are different numbers and customers deserve both.
2. What determines it
Timber type and treatment, whether posts are in ground contact, exposure, drainage, and whether anything grows against it. Customers can influence most of this.
3. The first year
What to do and what not to do in the first months, which is when most avoidable damage happens. New timber in particular needs specific handling.
4. The treatment schedule
How often, with what type of product, and what happens if it is skipped. Point to the manufacturer's guidance rather than inventing figures.
5. What treatment actually costs
Product and time, per year, for a typical run. Customers assume it is negligible or enormous and it is usually neither.
6. The parts that fail first
Post bases, fixings, the bottom board and anything in contact with soil. Knowing where to look means a customer catches a problem while it is still a repair.
7. Cleaning and what not to use
Pressure washing in particular, which damages softwood and composite differently and causes a great deal of avoidable harm.
8. Composite maintenance honestly
Lower, not zero. Cleaning, what marks it and what the manufacturer requires to keep a guarantee valid, which relates to materials questions before choosing a deck or fence.
9. The guarantee conditions
What your workmanship guarantee covers, what the manufacturer covers and what maintenance is required for either to hold. Published before purchase, not discovered during a claim.
10. What is repairable and what is not
A single failed post, a damaged board or a section, and roughly what each costs. Customers assume the whole thing has to be replaced and frequently it does not.
11. The seasonal check
A ten minute inspection twice a year, with what to look at. Give customers the list and they will use it.
12. Offer a maintenance service
Annual treatment, an inspection and small repairs. It is genuine recurring revenue from customers who already trust you, which is the ground in repeat customers and maintenance plan questions.
12b. What happens when a neighbour's side fails
Fence lifespan questions frequently turn into boundary questions, because one side is maintained and the other is not, and a shared structure fails at whichever end was ignored. Explaining that plainly, and what can be done about a post rotting from the far side, saves customers from a dispute they did not expect to be having.
13. Reach them at the right moment
A reminder before treatment season converts far better than any advertising, and the quoting questions in ground conditions and access questions before a quote apply to repair work too.
14. Answer it before they buy
Lifespan and upkeep are asked at the quote stage and decide which material somebody chooses, which is why proactive support answering questions before customers ask matters here.
Getting started
Publish honest lifespans with conditions, the treatment schedule and your guarantee terms, build the page with the AI FAQ generator, then answer at any hour. SpideyChat for contractors answers from your published pages, plans are on the pricing page, and the chatbot ROI calculator works through the numbers.