Fence preservation

[JohnN]

Not sure if this is the right forum, but here goes.
Opinions, please, on a good, reasonably-priced preservative, ideally sprayable, for garden fences (overlap style).
Mine need doing after some 10 years ago, when I used good old Creosote, which I'm told by my local shop is now banned. He says the "replacement" is not as effective. A couple of years ago I tried some product of Cuprinol, which was washed off by the rain after a few months - when I complained even the customer adviser said it was "rubbish" !
There's quite a lot of fence - c75m. So what do y'all recommend, please? And from where - Wickes, B & Q, Independents?
John N

[Primrose]

A couple of years ago our neighbour erected a new fence and coated his side with creosote which he had managed to obtain from somewhere. I wanted to coat our side a green colour and was advised that Cuprinol would not work well with creosote. I went ahead anyway and gave it a green Cuprinol coating. It ended up looking a complete streaky mess our side, which we are still having to live with, although the weather & sunshine has now faded the worst effects.
It will probably need redoing this winter and I'm planning on using a cheap B & Q own brand green preservative. If you've got a lot of fence and it hasn't been done for 10 years it will probably sop up any liquid like blotting paper, and whilst Cuprinol products are good, I find you need a second mortgage if you've got a lot of fencing to cover.

[Cider Boys]

The complication is that it seems to me that the cost of the preservative is more than the fence panel is worth!

Creosote is still widely used in industry and is still available, it is only not on sale to the general public due to the stupid legislators regarding people as thick as they are.

An agricultural supplier will still stock creasote but only in large quantities, just wear a mask, gloves and suitable clothing. Wash off any contact with the skin, as any moderately intelligent person would do, and read any instructions.

You can't paint over creosote until it is well weathered.

Barney

[Colin_M]

Since you asked about options for spraying, here's my take.

I bought a Cuprinol spray kit for our fence. Whilst it sort of works and initially seems to remove some of the backache of bending down to dip your brush then applying to the wood, I found some drawbacks:

- I found that I still used a brush to help finish off (though I may just be really useless at spraying!)
- Going back to do a second batch after a previous session (having cleaned it all as instructed) it didn't seem to spray as evenly
- If your fence is next to a public area (eg. a footpath) you may have to watch stray spray going over the top edge.

[Primrose]

Also, don't spray on a windy day if your next door neighbour had just hung her white sheets out on the line to dry! . The very fine spray particles can spread a lot further than you would imagine (including on your own clothes).

[madasafish]

Anyone advocating the use of creosote MUST say "DO NOT SPRAY".

Spraying creosote in a domestic environment is dangerous. To even mention it without that caveat when the OP speciifcally stated they would prefer to spray .......


And for all we know the OP may (I am sure is not) be stoopid enuf to spray it !:-))

Creosote also kills most plants : tough on next door's clematis growing up the other side of the fence...