Fence glossary · Structure
Picket
An individual vertical member fastened to the rails of a fence. Picket width, spacing and top profile decide how the fence reads from the street and whether it satisfies a code requirement — spacing narrow enough to reject the specified gauge is what separates a pool barrier from an ordinary yard fence.
Spacing does the most work of any picket variable. Traditional spaced picket sets the gap at roughly one picket width, which marks a boundary, keeps a dog or a small child off the sidewalk and does not hide the house. Close the gap entirely and you have solid picket, which reads heavier and screens a little. Widen it and the fence stops containing anything small. Aluminum and vinyl arrive with spacing fixed at manufacture; a wood picket fence is laid out on site, which means the spacing has to be worked back from the run length and post positions so the last bay does not finish on a sliver.
Profile is the street-facing decision — dog-ear, gothic, French gothic, flat-top, or a scalloped top line laid out across the bay. Cedar mills cleanly enough that a cut profile stays crisp for years; pressure-treated pine tends to fuzz at the cut and cup as it dries, and a twisted picket shows far more on a spaced fence than it ever would in a solid privacy run. On street-facing work inside the historic districts in West Chester and Kennett Square boroughs, profile and material can both fall under the borough's historic review.
Picket spacing is also where pool code lives. A standard spaced picket fence has openings wider than the barrier provisions accept, which is why an existing yard fence usually cannot be reused around a pool without modification. On aluminum, a puppy-picket configuration adds pickets through the bottom section to close the gap — the most frequent modification we install, and the same idea a barrier requires. The spacing, height and gap figures that apply to your property come from the municipality that adopted and enforces the code.
