Grayson County, Texas

Wood Fence Installation in Van Alstyne, Texas

Van Alstyne is the fastest-growing place in Grayson County by a wide margin — the population has roughly doubled since 2020 and city officials have planned around passing 30,000 by the end of the decade. Almost everything that means for fencing follows from one fact: this is overwhelmingly new-build subdivision work on ground that was pasture a few years ago. The buyer has a brand-new slab, a bare back yard, an HOA with an approval process, and no idea yet that the clay under the lawn moves several inches a year.

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Wood Fence in Van Alstyne

Wood is what most Van Alstyne covenants call for and what most new back yards here get. Two things make the job different from the same fence in Sherman. First, the covenant usually comes before the fence — height, stain colour and finished-side orientation are specified, board approval is required, and building first and asking later is how people end up taking a fence down. Second, the ground is the hardest in the county: deep smectite clay under a pad that was cut and filled only a few years ago, so posts have to reach past both the engineered fill and the active clay layer, with the footing belled against heave.

Permits and height limits

Van Alstyne became a home rule city in May 2022, which gave it considerably more local control over planning and development, and its fence provisions sit within the zoning chapter of the city code. In practice, on a new-build lot here the city's rules are frequently not the binding constraint — the subdivision's own recorded restrictions and the builder's approved plat often specify height, material and placement more tightly than the ordinance does, and both apply at once. Because the code has been actively revised as the town has grown, current requirements should be confirmed with the city for your address rather than taken from an older permit on a neighbouring street.

Soil and post depth

Van Alstyne sits squarely in Blackland Prairie country, and this is the most demanding fencing ground in the county. The clay here runs deep and carries a high proportion of smectite, the expansive mineral behind North Texas foundation movement — it takes on water and swells through a wet spring, then shrinks and cracks open in an August drought, and it grips a post while it does both. New subdivisions add a second problem: the pads were cut, filled and compacted only a few years ago, so a post can pass through engineered fill into undisturbed clay and sit across a boundary between two soils that behave differently. Posts go well below the active layer and the base of the hole is belled so the footing cannot be pushed up.

HOA and covenants

This is the city in Grayson County where the HOA matters most, and where it most often outranks everything else. Nearly every new development here was platted with detailed covenants: permitted heights, approved materials, stain colour, which direction the finished side must face, whether the fence may run to the front building line, and what happens where a lot backs onto a greenbelt or a detention area. Most require a submitted plan and written board approval before construction. Approval also tends to be tightest on the earliest phases, where the developer still controls the board.

Wind and exposure

Van Alstyne has the most exposed fencing conditions of any built-up area in the county, because the subdivisions are going up on open former pasture and the trees have not been planted yet. A fence on a new phase stands in genuinely open ground with nothing upwind, and a six or eight foot solid panel is a continuous sail. That condition can persist for years before the neighbouring phases and landscaping fill in, and the fence has to be built for the open ground it is standing in today.

Housing stock

Van Alstyne is a small historic core wrapped in a very large quantity of new construction. The original town has modest early twentieth century houses on generous lots near Highway 5. Everything else is production housing built in the last few years — slab-on-grade, tight side yards, engineered pads, uniform rooflines, and back yards that are entirely bare at handover. A 667-acre development approved on the south side alone carries more than 2,000 homes and 300 townhouses, which will roughly define the town's housing character for the next decade.

What the market looks like

Almost purely first-fence work on new construction, which makes it unlike anywhere else in Grayson County. The buyer typically has a bare back yard, a covenant document they have not read closely, and often a recent move from somewhere with completely different soil. A meaningful share are commuting south toward Plano, Frisco and Dallas, which shapes both what they expect a fence to look like and what they are used to paying for one.

What drives fence work here

The population has grown roughly 95 percent since the 2020 census and continues at around 8.6 percent a year, which means a continuous supply of newly handed-over houses with bare back yards reaching the point where the fence is the first outdoor project.
A 667-acre development approved on the south side at the Grayson and Collin county line carries more than 2,000 homes and 300 townhouses, and phased handovers on a site that size generate fencing demand in waves rather than evenly.
Van Alstyne took home rule status in May 2022 and has been revising its development standards actively since, which means the requirements applying to a lot handed over this year are not necessarily the ones that applied to the phase next door.

Around Van Alstyne

The US-75 corridor, which is the reason the town is growing and the spine everything is being built along
The Grayson and Collin county line running south of town, which two of the largest new developments straddle
Van Alstyne ISD, whose catchment is a primary driver of who is moving here
State Highway 5, the older parallel route through the original town centre

Van Alstyne · Grayson County · population 8,701. Up 95 percent since the 2020 census count of 4,461, growing around 8.6 percent a year.

How a wood fence behaves here

North Texas destroys wood fences from the ground up, not the top down. The Blackland clay that runs through eastern Grayson County swells in a wet spring and shrinks in an August drought, and every cycle works a shallow-set post a little looser. A fence that leans four years in almost never failed at the pickets — it failed at the bottom eight inches of a post that was never set deep enough to sit below the moving layer.

Posts loosening from seasonal clay movement, which shows as a lean that gets worse each spring rather than all at once
Rot at the ground line where the post stays damp against soil, usually the first real failure on treated pine
Cupping and twisting of pickets after a few North Texas summers of direct UV and low humidity
Nail pops and loose pickets as boards shrink in drought and swell again after rain
Rails sagging in the middle of an 8-foot span, which pulls pickets out of line along the whole run
Gates dropping out of square, almost always because the hinge post was set no deeper than a line post

Full guide to wood fence fencing

Other fencing in Van Alstyne

Vinyl Fence

Homeowners who want a clean white or tan privacy fence, will not stain anything ever again, and are willing to pay more up front to stop maintaining a fence.

Ornamental Iron Fence

Pool enclosures, front-yard and courtyard fencing, and any property where security and appearance matter but blocking the view does not.

Common questions

How deep should fence posts go in Grayson County?

Deeper than the national rule of thumb, and for a reason that has nothing to do with frost. Frost depth here is only a few inches, so it is not what governs. What governs is expansive clay: it swells wet, shrinks dry, and grips the post while it moves. A post anchored only in the top two feet sits entirely inside that moving layer. In clay we set posts well below it, and bell the bottom of the hole slightly so the concrete footing cannot be lifted out.

Cedar or treated pine — which is actually better here?

Cedar resists rot and insects naturally, stays straighter through hot dry summers, and takes stain well. Treated pine costs less up front and is genuinely strong, but it arrives wet, needs months before it will hold stain, and is more likely to twist as it dries out in North Texas heat. If the fence is going to be stained and you want it to still look straight in year five, cedar is usually the better spend. If budget is the deciding factor, pine is a reasonable fence.

Should I use wood posts or steel posts?

Steel posts with cedar pickets cost more up front and remove the most common way a wood fence dies here, which is rot at the ground line. A wood post is doing two jobs at once — holding the fence up and sitting in wet soil — and it is the part that fails first. Steel posts also stay straighter under wind load on long runs. On a fence you expect to keep for a long time, it is usually the better value even though the first invoice is higher.

Do I need a permit for a wood fence?

That depends on which city you are in, and the rules genuinely differ across Grayson County. Sherman requires a site plan filed with Development Services and limits screening fences along side and rear property lines to eight feet. Smaller cities handle it differently. If your neighbourhood has an HOA, that is a second and separate approval with its own rules about style, colour and which way the finished side faces. We check both for your address before we start.

Which way should the finished side face?

Toward the street or your neighbour, in most cases — and in a lot of subdivisions it is not optional, because the covenants say so. Beyond the rules, there is a practical argument: the rail side is easier to climb, so facing the smooth side outward is the better choice on a fence that borders a public space. We will tell you what your covenants require before we build, not after.

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