What "replace" actually covers
A fence replacement isn't just new boards on old posts. A proper job tears out the old fence, hauls away every scrap of it, digs new post holes below the frost line, sets new posts in fresh concrete, and builds a new fence from there. In the Twin Cities metro, a full tear-out-to-new-build job for a standard wood privacy fence typically runs $4,200 to $7,500. Where you land in that range depends mostly on the length of the fence, how hard the old one is to remove, and what the ground looks like once you start digging.
Tear-out and haul-away: the part people forget to budget for
Demolition and disposal aren't free, and they're not trivial on an old fence. Rotted wood posts set in concrete don't pull out cleanly - most crews have to dig or break out the old footings, which slows the job down and adds labor. Then there's disposal: a contractor either hauls the debris to a transfer station and pays a dump fee by weight, or a homeowner is left to deal with a pile of old lumber, nails, and concrete chunks at the curb.
In practice, tear-out and haul-away typically account for a meaningful slice of the total bid - often somewhere in the range of 10-20% of the job cost, more if the old fence is chain-link with concrete footers or if a trailer can't get close to the backyard and everything has to come out by hand through a gate. Ask any quote to break this line out separately; a bid that lumps demo into "labor" without detail is harder to compare against another contractor's number.
Why contractors almost never reuse old posts
Homeowners ask about this a lot, hoping to save money, and the honest answer is: it's usually not worth it. A few reasons:
- Frost heave has already done damage. Minnesota's freeze-thaw cycle pushes and pulls on anything set in the ground. Over years, posts shift, lean, or work loose in their concrete collar even if they look fine above grade.
- Rot starts at the grade line, out of sight. The section of a wood post that fails first is right where it meets the soil - exactly the spot you can't inspect without digging it up anyway.
- New panels rarely match old spacing. Post spacing is tied to the specific fence design; a new privacy panel system often needs different centers than whatever was there before.
- Depth requirements matter more than people expect. Minnesota's frost depth is significant - in Hennepin County, the commonly cited minimum for footings is around 42 inches, which is deeper than a lot of older, budget-built fences were ever set. A contractor resetting posts to proper depth is effectively starting from scratch anyway.
The math almost always favors pulling everything and starting with new posts set to full depth. It's a cleaner job and it's the part of the fence most likely to determine whether it's still standing straight in ten years.
Permits: check both the city and the fence height
Permit rules vary by city in the Twin Cities metro, and the two biggest cities have different thresholds.
In Minneapolis, a building permit is generally required for any fence over 6 feet tall anywhere on a residential lot, and for front-yard fences over 4 feet. Permit fees in Minneapolis are commonly cited in the $100-$300 range. Zoning also sets height limits by yard location - front yards and corner side yards are more restricted than rear yards.
St. Paul runs its own fence plan review and permitting process through its Department of Safety and Inspections, and the city's residential fence height limit is set at 6 feet 6 inches above grade. St. Paul's fence rules also address specifics like barbed wire placement, which isn't something every suburb regulates the same way.
Beyond the two core cities, the Twin Cities metro is a patchwork of dozens of suburbs - Bloomington, Edina, Woodbury, South St. Paul, and others - each with its own zoning code, and some smaller cities have different height and permit thresholds than either Minneapolis or St. Paul. A straight backyard-height wood privacy fence (6 feet or under, set back from the property line) skips a permit in a lot of jurisdictions, but it's worth a quick call to your city's building department before tear-out starts, especially if the new fence changes height, material, or location from what's there now.
Timeline: what actually slows a fence job down
A straightforward backyard fence replacement - tear-out, post-setting, and rebuild - usually runs a few days of on-site work once it starts: one day for demo and hauling debris, a day or two for digging and setting posts (concrete needs time to cure before panels go up), and a day or two for the actual fence build depending on length. Add time if the old fence has masonry gates, retaining sections, or if utility locates turn up a line running closer to the fence than expected.
The bigger timeline factor in this climate is the calendar, not the job itself. Frozen ground makes post-hole digging difficult to impossible for a stretch of the Minnesota winter, which pushes a lot of demand into a short spring-to-fall installation window. Booking early in the season, rather than waiting until everyone else wants a crew in May, tends to mean a shorter wait for a start date.
Getting a number for your specific fence
Every yard is different - fence length, gate count, access for equipment, what's actually holding the old fence together - and all of it moves the final price around within that $4,200-$7,500 range. The fastest way to get a number that reflects your actual job, rather than a generic estimate, is to photograph the existing fence and describe the job (length, any gates, what you want to replace it with). That's what this site is built to do: turn a photo and a few details into an instant local price range, without a sales call attached to it.