Chain link gets dismissed as the cheap option. It is the cheap option, and it is also the most durable fence per dollar available in Grayson County, which is why it is still the right answer for a lot of yards.
What it does not do is give you privacy. Everything else it does well.
Why it suits open ground
There is a real engineering advantage to a fence you can see through, and it becomes obvious on the acreage and open lots north and west of Sherman. Wind passes through chain link fabric. It passes through a solid cedar fence not at all — an eight-foot privacy fence in open ground is a sail, and every gust is transferred into the posts and then into the soil holding them.
That is why a chain link fence on an exposed lot can be built lighter than a wood one and still outlast it. It is also why adding privacy slats later is not a free decision: slats convert an open fence into something close to a solid one, and the posts underneath were sized for the old one.
Where the money actually goes
Chain link has an unusually wide gap between a cheap installation and a durable one, and almost all of it is invisible once the fence is up:
- Terminal, corner and gate posts. These carry the fabric tension for the entire run. They are bigger than line posts and they need to be set deeper. Treating them like line posts is the single most common shortcut, and it shows up within a couple of years as posts pulling inward at every corner.
- Bottom tension wire. A thin wire along the bottom that stops the fabric being levered up. Leaving it out saves very little and is why dogs get out.
- Fabric gauge. Lower number means thicker wire. 9-gauge is meaningfully tougher than 11 or 12 where something will push on it.
- Post depth. Same clay problem as every other fence in this county, covered in detail in our post depth guide.
Galvanized or black
Bare galvanized is the cheapest and looks like it. Black vinyl-coated costs more and is worth it in a yard you look at every day — the black recedes against grass and trees, while galvanized draws a bright silver line across the view.
The one caution is fabric quality. On cheap coated fabric the vinyl splits where the wires knuckle together. Once water gets between the coating and the steel it rusts underneath the coating, out of sight, which is worse than bare galvanized rusting where you can see and treat it.
Rules worth checking first
Chain link runs into city rules more often than other fence types, because a number of cities treat front-yard fencing differently and require it to be low and mostly open. Subdivision covenants are frequently stricter still and some prohibit chain link in a front yard outright. Rules vary genuinely across Grayson County, so this is worth confirming for your specific address rather than assuming.