Gravel boards perform an extremely important role in keeping water and damp areas away from your wooden fence panels. Any wood that becomes damp will eventually rot which may cause the wooden fence panels to collapse and the border of security and privacy that you installed, to fail in its service for you.
Gravel boards are usually made of either concrete or treated wood. However, if the gravel board itself fails or cracks, it may not be performing its task correctly and you may need to exchange it for a new one and that’s time to contact your gravel board suppliers.
Kick boards
Originally, gravel boards were always made of wood and called kick boards in the early days. They received this name because when the gravel board needed replacing, you simply kicked the board out of the way.
However, if the gravel board has been installed correctly, it is not a simple matter of just taking it out of the way.
A wooden gravel board will be attached to your fence posts to provide an additional element of security. You will need to remove the attachment before the gravel board itself can be taken away.
Concrete gravel boards can be attached in a similar manner to the fence posts, but because of their wholesome weight, the usually sit in place and allow the wooden fence panels to sit on top of them. When you need to remove a concrete gravel board because it has cracked and is no longer strong enough or secure enough to hold the wooden fence panels above it, you will need to remove the fence panel first before you can get at the concrete gravel board.
For the people that choose to leave their concrete gravel boards loose under the wooden fence panels, you can remove them by simply pushing the gravel boards out from under the wooden fence panels because fence panels are attached to your fence posts by panel clips and although they sit directly onto your concrete gravel boards they won’t fall down and out of the way if you remove the gravel board.
The fence panel will probably have to be removed
You will find a task of removing a wooden or concrete gravel board much easier if you do first remove the fence panel from above it as this will give you easy access to the board. Over time the board may not move easily because soil and pressure from surrounding areas will also be holding the gravel board in place so it won’t be easy just to slide it out, or kick out a wooden version if it is firmly in place.
Your task will be so much easier if you are able to purchase the exact same size of model from your gravel board suppliers. If you are unable to purchase the same size model you might need to move away some of the soil that has built up since you first installed your wooden fencing so that the wooden or concrete gravel board sits in the right place so that when you reinstall the wooden fence panel, it can go exactly where it was before.
Galvanised metal clips will help keep the board in exactly the right place and will stop people from taking it out from the other side. If you’re going to be using concrete gravel boards, you can simply predrill holes with a masonry bit and complete the same task as you would with a wooden gravel board.
