Lap, closeboard, hit and miss and composite compared
Lap panels are the cheapest at £60 to £80 a bay but the shortest lived. Closeboard costs £45 to £70 a metre and lasts roughly twice as long. Hit and miss handles wind best and looks the same from both sides. Composite costs £90 to £140 a metre and needs no maintenance at all.
The four options at a glance
| Type | Cost | Typical life | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lap panel | £60 to £80 per bay | 8 to 12 years | Sheltered gardens, tight budgets |
| Featheredge panel | £80 to £100 per bay | 10 to 15 years | A stronger panel without site building |
| Closeboard on site | £45 to £70 per metre | 15 to 20 years | Exposed or sloping boundaries |
| Hit and miss | £55 to £85 per metre | 15 to 20 years | Windy plots, shared boundaries |
| Composite | £90 to £140 per metre | 20 years plus | Zero maintenance, coastal gardens |
Lap panels
Horizontal overlapping slats in a light frame, the fence most Teesside estates were built with. Cheap, quick, and fine behind a house that shelters it. The weaknesses are structural: the frame is thin, the slats work loose, and a solid face in an exposed garden puts all the load on the posts. If you go this way, spend the saving on concrete posts and gravel boards, which is where the life comes from.
Featheredge panels
The same vertical boards as closeboard, made up as a panel in a factory rather than built in place. Heavier and stiffer than lap, and a genuine step up for not much more money. It still drops into a fixed bay, so it does not follow sloping ground, and a damaged panel is replaced whole.
Closeboard built on site
Posts, arris rails and overlapping featheredge boards assembled in place. It costs more in labour and returns it in life expectancy, repairability and the ability to follow uneven ground exactly. Damage means replacing a board, not a bay. On the exposed edges of Ingleby Barwick, Wynyard and the higher ground round Guisborough, it is the fence that stays standing when the panels down the street do not. The closeboard page covers the specification detail.
Hit and miss
Boards fixed alternately to the front and back of the rails, leaving gaps that wind passes through instead of pushing against. Three advantages: it survives gales that flatten solid fences, it looks identical from both sides so it suits a shared boundary nobody wants to argue over, and it gives partial privacy without feeling like a wall. The trade offs are less complete privacy and slightly more timber than a plain closeboard run.
Composite
Recycled wood fibre and polymer boards slotted into aluminium posts. The highest price and the lowest ongoing effort: no staining, no rot at the base, and warranties of ten to twenty five years. Salt air along the Redcar, Marske and Hartlepool coast is where it shows its value most clearly. It is rigid, so slopes are stepped rather than raked, and colour choice is fixed at purchase. Detail on the composite page.
How to choose
Three questions settle it in most gardens. How exposed is the boundary, because that rules out solid lap panels on the windward edges. How long do you intend to own the problem, because life expectancy is what justifies closeboard or composite over the cheapest option. And is the fence shared, because a hit and miss or a properly capped closeboard avoids the good side and bad side conversation entirely. Whatever you pick, the posts and the gravel board decide the life more than the boards do. The cost guide puts the total figures against each option, and the height and boundary guide covers what you are allowed to build.