Repainting previously painted 4 board

[EverQuest]

Maybe a silly question but I sorted through countless fence painting threads and couldn’t find my answer…

We have 4 board fencing that was painted black when installed 10 years ago (before we bought it). Its definitely time to repaint. I see many recommene staining vs painting, using air sprayers, etc but my questions are:
Do I need to sand the entire fence before staining or repainting?
Is it even possible to swap to stain if black paint has already been applied?
Or should we just stick with paint and accept the every few years maintenance?

[clanter]

we stained our fences using a solid color stain… advantage at least for us was the color was now in the wood not on its surface… no paint pealing what so ever

I suspect you will not be able to stain over the paint, but suggest at east to power wash the fence before painting

[Hilary]

if a lot of the paint is peeling off, a good power wash might take enough paint off that you can start using stain, but if most of it is still adhered you are probably stuck with paint. I can’t imagine spending the time it would take to scrape down a whole fence! If you do stain over the remaining paint eventually those spots will flake off an you’ll need to stain them, but that could be a few more years and you won’t have to re-scrape to add more stain.

[ljadwin]

A good power-washer will strip latex paint down to the wood much faster than you can sand or scrape it. It also leaves the surface roughed up for new paint.

Repaint with fence paint, ag-implement paint, or a super-sticky paint like Kilz to make sure you don’t have to keep repainting all the time.

[EverQuest]

Thanks everyone!