Cost And Material Comparisons Between Partial or Total Privacy Wood Fences - No Estimated Prices 

I live in the suburbs of Dallas. It's very common to have total privacy fences, aka board-on-board. In some neighborhoods, MOST of the fences are also 8-ft tall. Thanks for showing how the total privacy style is not really that much more expensive! That was helpful. I am about to put a fence in and was considering the partial-privacy style to save money, but now I will go ahead and spend the relatively few extra bucks and make it more private. I would have regretted spending all that money and still having gaps in the fence, so I will definitely do the total privacy style now.

Don't buy the prefab wood panel garbage, it will last two years and the stringers are 2x2s, not 2x4s, they warp fast. You come out better buying the lumber separately. Paint a diesel and used motor oil mixture on the bottom 24" of the posts to prevent rot on the posts in the ground, an old farmer's trick. You have to use 80lbs of concrete per post for strength in winds (esp in hurricane areas). Paint the fence with flood UV by ppg, best bang for the buck. If you don't stain it, it will be grey and warped in two years max. FYI they took a chemical out of the pressure treating process in the early 2000's, this is why you can dig up posts today, 20 years old with no rot but don't expect today's PT to last that long unless you treat it all with boracare. Do you want a fence that lasts 20 years or one that lasts two-five (max)? It's your choice but with the cost of wood, why not spend a bit more to make it last a long time?

Cool idea for enhanced privacy. I do occasional fence installs and I've never seen that. And it looks like you only use close to half as many screws with the privacy method. Which can get spendy if you're springing for the coated type that don't leave mascara tears. So I'm sure the fastener savings make up for the cost of extra pickets. A spacing jig would probably help get the install time down closer to the butt together method. I'd strongly recommend using 3 rails per section to prevent the pickets from warping perpendicular to the face. Probably not as much of an issue on this privacy method as they're all holding in to each other. Also I install the rails on end with fence brackets. I installed a personal fence with them laid flat and they sagged. Thanks for the great demonstrations they've helped me numerous times on many projects.

I don't think the last example is a good idea. The boards are going to take so much longer to dry out, the lifespan of the fence will be greatly reduced. If you think about it, someone can just walk over and look over the fence if they really wanted. Eliminating the 1/8" gap doesn't make sense unless you build an 8 foot high fence for total privacy.