Well I *literally* just finished putting up about 250ft of split-rail fencing about 30 minutes ago! I did it all myself - started Saturday at 10am and like I said just finished minutes ago. Actually I still have to build the two gate doors, but I'm too exhausted to do it this weekend and will finish those next weekend. It was very tiring even for someone a strong and athletic as myself, but my yard is very hilly and the fence design included a lot of corners.
Equipment I used:
1. Post-hole digger
2. Level
3. String
4. 60lb bag of concrete (only for the gate hinge posts)
5. Recip saw (to trim rails where needed)
Lessons I learned:
You always lay the fence out ahead of time on the ground to get the spacing right, and then put the two end posts in for a given section. Then run a string to serve as a guide or else I guarantee you you'll end up with sections that aren't straight. It was eerie how I didn't have to relocate and of the end posts from their original locations as I finally completed each run - I thought for sure the clearances would have ended up a couple inches off as I got the fence into the ground. Digging the holes was a pain in my yard since the soil is really damp clay. Luckily I'm pretty bad ass so I toughed it out. In loamy soil it would be really easy. Mark your post hole digger on the handle to correlate to the appropriate depth - that way you don't have to keep measuring the depth of your hole.
Long straight runs are cake. Corner and end posts are a little more of a pain but not too bad assuming you don't have to cut the rails shorter on the last section of the run in order to fit. Try to avoid having to cut the rails at all! It's not too had if you cut rails between one end section and a center section, but it's hell on earth to try and cut rails between two end posts! Cutting the rails to length isn't a problem, it's trying to notch out the ends to get them all to fit in the slots that is almost impossible. You'll get the bottom one to work out... the cut the middle one and try to fit it... and then the bottom one ends up too short so it falls out when you place the middle one... then you finally get the bottom two in and try to fit the top rail... same problem and much rage occurs. I probably had to cut on average 5 rails before I got a combo of 3 that worked right in these scenarios. Thank god for the reciprocating saw, if I was doing it by hand it wouldn't have happened. Another pain when cutting a notch in a rail is getting it to line up vertically with the slot. Invariably I'd think I did a good plumb notch and when I lined it up with the slot it would be like 30 degrees crooked. Really frustrating.
The only places I had to do this was around my gate, in order to make everything fit. If you don't have any gates and can size your fence such that you don't have to shorten any sections then the whole thing is pretty easy. Again... try to avoid having to shorten rails between two end or corner posts!!!
That's my brain dump right now. Oh yeah, my project cost just under $1k - all for the lumber. It seems like posts and rails all run right around $10ea. I used treated wood but would have used cedar if I had the choice, nobody around here sells it though.