How to build a simple fence.
What do your need the fence for? Can the same effect be
acheived with bushes and trees?
How high will the fence need to be? Is there a city or
county limitation on your fence height? This is commonly 6 feet on
side and back yards, 3 feet on street corners and 4 foot in the
front.
Will the fence create an access, shade, view or wind
problem? Put the fence up, and then try to build a pool.
What material is affordable, looks good and you are capable
of constructing?
Can you dig the holes? This sounds stupid but I bid a
couple of fences where there was solid rock six inches down. Talk
about working hard for free! A number of cities have adobe. If
you're a grandpa, you'll get one hole dug a day. Since you need a
post every eight feet, it may take you awhile.
If you want chain link, have it professionally installed
(but you may need to rob a bank to pay for it). When labor was
cheap, chain link was cheap. Now it costs a little more than a
wood fence for a ok chain link, double wood for a good chain
link(one with the top pipe runner).
Rock Walls.
Many sites have rocks EVERYWHERE! In older times the poor
farmer would have his kids pick the rocks from the field and he'd
build a 'fence' with them. After few years of picking rocks from
the field the kids figured they needed to go to college in another
state and the farmer had a really nice wall/fence. In some areas
you can buy rip/rap that they use to stablize creek banks for
reasonable prices. A truck and trailer load of bolders can cost as
little as eight or ten dollars a ton, delivered. But you have to
scoop out the rock, FIRST. Nothing is more disastorus than having
twenty tons of 3 foot bolders delivered onto a new paver drive
way.
you'll never retreive the pavers,
you CAN'T move the rocks, they weigh 3-4000 pounds each,
try moving those with a dolly.
almost as bad is the pile of 3-6 inch round river cobble,
it's great for making edging and cobble 'paths', but a pain in
making walls, near impossible for making fences. If they deliver
the small rock, then we use plan “B”. Plan “B”
is to pour footings, a six inch deep by 18 inch wide strip of
contrete with wire or rebar in it with bits of wire sticking out
to attach the rock to. Frame a six inch wide moveable frame of
plywood in two sections eight foot long. It doesn't have to be
prefect for a low wall, it does have to be perfect for a fence.
Anyone can build a one or maybe even two foot rock wall. A six
foot rock 'fence' is an entirely different matter. First quarter
calculus is easier. (Second quarter wasn't.) A one-two foot rock
wall with a four foot wooden 'fence' on it is wonderful. Dogs
can't dig under it, the wood doesn't rot, and you end up with a
great setting bench.
Wood fences.
The big thing about wood fences is the posts and runners. If
you use cheap posts the fence will be on the ground in less than
five years. Use cheap runners and the fence will be so wrapped
you'll wish it was on the ground. Use pressure treated posts, not
peeler posts that are rolled in dip or galzanzed steel posts. If
you use wood buy it from a 'real' lumber yard where the posts have
been unbanded and in the sun for at least six months. The discount
yards turn the wood from the mill to you in as little as a week.
The wood commonly will look like a pretzel after six months, a
fence of pretzels is an interesting, if ineffective, fence. This
is true of the railings and runners also. The boards themselves
can warp and be a pain but they're nailed onto the runners so they
can't move too much. The worst I've seen the fence looked like a
cat with its fur up. It still looked like a cat.
The wooden posts should be 'planted' in soil. Metal posts
should be cemented in. The cement is alkaline and has a lot of
free Calcium. Treated posts that are cemented in rot off
significally fasted than posts placed directly in the soil. In
some soils the rot off make a wobbly fence in three or four
years. Who wants to do this again? (Replacing a
rotting fence post is as much work as the original fence. Take
everything down back to the nearly solid post on each side of the
gap, reset post(see next paragraph) and rebulid runners and
boards.).
Planting the posts consists of 1.driving a few 10-20 penny
galvanized nails part way into the posts below the final grade
level 2. digging a hole big enough to handle the post and the
nails sticking out of it 3. putting post into hole and hard
tamping it as you back fill the dirt. Do not fill the hole and
tamp it, fill three inches of the hole, tamp, three inches, tamp,
and so forth. For a six foot fence, you'll need a 7 foot post
buried one and half feet. A runner goes about one foot above grade
level and a top plate or runner goes at the top of the fence. The
easiest fence for a novice is to place the 2X4 runners on the
outside of the 4X4 tread posts matching the ends of the 2X4's as
you run along the fence. You'll need a pocket level, some string,
a nut or fishing weight and two 2X4's to set you posts. Put the
corner posts up first, make sure they're level(don't measure the
top of the post, put the level against the side of the post, there
should be a side level). Drive a small nail in about and inch into
the top far corner of each corner post and string the posts.
(Don't pull the string so hard as to pull the posts over, but you
tamped them, right?) If two of you are working pull and tape
measure along the string and mark the sting every eight feet ¼
inch. Sight your hole by putting your fishing weight or medium
sized nut on the end of six foot of string and using it as a plumb
bob. Be careful not to fudge the string either vertically or
horizonality, if the wind is blowing hard use a heavier bob. If
it's really blowing you will have to use the 2X4 vertically and
use the side level for that. Dig your holes off of the bob and
2X4's placed end to end(to check your bob) check your level on the
post with every tamp. (If Bob's doing it, check Bob.) The hardest
part of a fence is getting the posts in the right spot and level.
Wire fences
Wood and wire mix fences.
Cement the
posts, or posts in dirt? Treated wood, redwood or cedar?
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