Aluminum Fencing

What it's built from

Powder-coated aluminum pickets don't carry a sacrificial zinc coating the way galvanized steel does, so there's no coating to wear through — it simply doesn't rust, which is why it's the material most directly suited to a pool enclosure or a coastal yard.

The trade-offs

Open picket construction is low-maintenance and wind-permeable — it sheds wind load rather than catching it, unlike a solid wood panel. What it doesn't offer is full visual privacy the way a solid panel does.

In Brevard specifically

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Pool barriers — what Florida law actually requires

Florida's Residential Swimming Pool Safety Act (Fla. Stat. ch. 515) requires a pool to have a barrier that is at least 4 ft high on the outside, with no gap, opening, indentation, protrusion or structural component that would let a young child crawl under, squeeze through or climb over it. A gate in that barrier must open outward, away from the pool, and be self-closing with a self-latching lock whose release is on the pool side, out of a small child's reach.

The detail worth knowing before you fence a pool yard: an ordinary privacy fence around the back yard is not automatically a code-compliant pool barrier just because it's taller than 4 ft and encloses the yard. Chapter 515 requires the barrier to be separate from the rest of the yard's fence or wall — unless that fence sits on the pool's own perimeter and, on its own, meets every one of the barrier requirements above, gates included. An open aluminum enclosure set on the pool's own perimeter, built to those specs, is the straightforward way to satisfy the statute.

Who it suits

A pool enclosure, an HOA-governed yard where style is dictated by the association, or any coastal lot where a material that doesn't rust is worth more than full privacy.