The most common fence question we hear is simple: aluminium, steel, or wood? All three can look great on day one. The difference is what happens over the next twenty years.
Corrosion: where wood and steel fall behind
Aluminium does not rust. It forms a thin, self-healing oxide layer the moment it's exposed to air, which protects the metal beneath for the life of the fence. In coastal and humid environments — common across the Bulgarian Black Sea coast — this is decisive.
Steel rusts unless it's continuously protected by paint, galvanising or both. Galvanised steel is durable but the zinc layer wears at edges and welds first. Wood absorbs water, expands, contracts and eventually rots at ground contact even with treatment.
Maintenance hours per year
Aluminium needs a wash with water and mild detergent once or twice a year. That's it. No painting, no rust-treatment, no replacement of rotten boards.
Wood needs re-staining or sealing every 2–4 years, and individual boards typically need replacing within a decade. Steel needs spot-treatment of rust as it appears and a full repaint within 7–10 years.
Strength and security
Steel still wins on raw tensile strength — for very tall fences (over 2.5 m) or security-critical sites, it remains the right choice. For residential heights up to 2.2 m, modern extruded aluminium profiles deliver more than enough strength when post spacing is correct.
Wood is the weakest of the three structurally and the most vulnerable to forced entry; aluminium panels with a continuous powder-coated surface are much harder to cut or pry than a wooden picket.
20-year total cost
Aluminium typically costs 20–40% more than wood up front and is comparable to or below quality galvanised steel. Over 20 years, aluminium almost always wins on total cost of ownership because there are no recurring paint, repair or replacement cycles.
If you measure lifetime value rather than the first invoice, aluminium is the rational choice for any fence you intend to keep for more than a decade.
- Aluminium: lowest 20-year cost, near-zero maintenance, immune to rust.
- Steel: highest raw strength, needs paint maintenance, vulnerable at welds.
- Wood: cheapest day-one, highest lifetime cost, replacement boards a recurring chore.
