Best Metal Fence Panels for Your Fence Installation

Stock steel panels are chosen by top, grade, and height, and each choice moves the price per foot. The top can be flat, spear, or curve, the grade commercial or lighter, and the height about 3 to 8 feet, and the fence can be closed off with wood slats, a solid steel sheet, or expanded metal. This guide covers what each option changes and what a panel fence costs.

Flat, spear, or curve top

Stock panels come in flat top, spear top, and curve top. On a flat top the pickets stop at the top rail. On a spear top and a curve top they run about 6 inches past it, pointed on the spear and bent into an arc on the curve. All three come in the same stock sizes. Curve top is made in the commercial grade only, so it costs more than a flat or spear top in the lighter grade.

Commercial grade vs lighter grade

Stock panels come in two grades, and the names only mean how thick the metal is. Commercial grade is 1-1/2 inch rails with 3/4 inch pickets. The lighter grade, also sold as residential grade, is 1 inch rails with 5/8 inch pickets. Both go on any kind of property. The thicker rail bends less when a cart or a car pushes on it, so it goes where the fence gets leaned on and hit: a parking lot, a frontage, a school. The lighter grade has less steel in every panel, so it costs less, and it goes where nothing leans on the fence. Both arrive galvanized and powder coated the same way.

Height options

Heights run from about 3 to 8 feet. A 4-foot fence marks a property line. A 5- or 6-foot fence is the standard height around a commercial lot or along a street. A 7- or 8-foot fence goes around a storage yard, a stock yard, or a security perimeter. A taller fence takes more steel and deeper footings, so the price per foot goes up with the height.

Galvanized steel and the finish

The steel tube is galvanized at the mill, and the factory welds it into panels and powder coats them, so the steel wears two coats: zinc underneath and powder coat on top. The zinc keeps the steel from rusting. The powder coat is the color. The Sacramento sun fades the color a little every year, and sprinkler spray leaves water sitting on the steel, so those two spots wear first. A touch-up every several years brings the color back. Installed and maintained, these panels run 30 years or more.

Privacy and add-ons

To close the view, wood slats slide between the pickets, or a solid steel sheet or an expanded metal sheet mounts behind them. Each one changes the look and the price. A third rail across the panel is a special order and adds lead time.

Solid metal fence panels

When the fence has to block the view completely, the panel gets built solid. A solid sheet infill is steel sheet welded between the pickets, so the fence keeps its ornamental frame and nothing shows through. A corrugated steel panel is the ribbed sheet we hang on trash enclosure gates and privacy screens; it covers the whole panel and takes powder coat. Expanded metal is a tight mesh sheet behind the pickets; it closes the gaps between them and still lets light through. A solid panel carries more steel and more weld time than an open one, so it costs more per foot. The gauges and the per-foot prices for each one are in solid metal fence panels.

What it costs

How many feet of fence, the height, the grade, and how the posts go in set the price. On a 6-foot fence 100 feet long, the commercial grade costs about $6,500 to $7,700, which comes to roughly $70 to $100 a foot. The lighter grade costs about $6,100 to $7,300, roughly $55 to $75 a foot. Privacy add-ons and hauling out an old fence go on top of that. A post that goes through asphalt or concrete costs more than a post in dirt, because each hole has to be broken out or core-drilled before the post is set. A short run costs more per foot than a long one, because the crew’s day and the trip cost the same for 30 feet as for 300.