Home Improving: A New Fence

Humans have been enclosing things in fences since there were fences and things to enclose. It’s natural that you’d want to build one eventually. After all, with a good fence you have privacy, a way to keep out unwanted critters, or maybe to keep your pets from wandering into the neighbor’s yard. It’s your fence, you have your reasons.

But, building a fence isn’t just a matter of nailing a few boards together. Even though it’s a good project for new homeowners, there are a few things to keep in mind before taking the plunge.

Plan Before You Build

If you’ve read any of these blogs, you know that the planning and prep are keys to success with any sort of project, whether that’s repainting your house, sealing your driveway or, in this case, building a fence. The legwork involved in fence building is nearly as involved as the actual fence building, but doing it right means a fence that will last and last.

Do these things before you even start to think about digging the first post hole:

Find Your Neighborhood’s Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions

The Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions dictate what can and cannot be done to property belonging to a particular homeowners’ association. If you have HOA fees or commonly owned property (playgrounds, pools, etc) in your neighborhood, you probably have a CC&R somewhere that you need to read.

Understand that you are legally obligated to this agreement since you signed what amounts to a contract to abide by the rules at the time you purchased your home. CC&R’s can literally dictate anything, from how tall the fence can be to what type of materials are allowed (or required). If you can’t find your copy in your closing documents, call your escrow company or Homeowners Association, and they can provide you with a new copy.

Go Visit Planning and Zoning

Your city’s Planning & Zoning department makes lots of rules about things you’d never imagine there needed to be a rule made about. Things like side setbacks, minimum sizes for new homes and minimum required green space per residential lot, along with fencing requirements and the necessity of obtaining a permit.

The P&Z rules that will get you are going to be related to the height of your fencing, how far it has to be off of the street or lot line and, like in your CC&R, the materials the fence is made of. In areas with high winds, fires, or other regularly destructive forces, there may be specific requirements for construction style in order to minimize the chances your fence becomes dangerous in a disaster.

Get Your Permit!

Not every municipality will require that you have a permit to build a fence, especially if you’re just replacing an existing fence with a new one, but some do. This is not something to take a chance on, just go to the city and apply for one. The chances are great that you’ll be granted an approval, but an inspector will still come by to make sure your fence is sturdy and sound. This is good for you in the longer term, both as a homeowner and down the road when you plan to sell. If you built the fence wrong, you’re really just wasting your money on a structure that won’t last. And retrofitting for a permit is much more costly than just obtaining it in advance.

Plan for a Survey

Surveyors have a tough job. They know where the property lines are supposed to be, and too often, they’re forced to have to tell a homeowner that the lines aren’t exactly where they thought they should be. Breaking the bad news is basically their job, so along with having great working knowledge of surveying, they also have to be good at telling people they’ve been wrong all this time.

Now, this may not be the case for you, but before you even think about putting in a fence, have a survey. You don’t want your neighbor to sue you because the fence was put in the wrong place, forcing you to do it all over again, or buy them out of the land that should have not been fenced in.

Fence Construction

Now that you’ve managed the details, you can start thinking about your fence.  You know what materials are allowed and which aren’t, plus the heights and setback requirements.

When you choose those fencing materials, you’ll have a few important choices to make. It’s important at this stage of the game to figure out the purpose for your fence. Do you like having company over and don’t want to disturb the neighbors? Are you putting in a pool? Does your dog need a place to romp?

Although all three can be serviced by a fairly generic fence type, there might be more specific advantages to particular fence styles whether you’re trying to keep the noise level down or want to make sure neighborhood kids don’t sneak into your pool at night. The pool is better protected by a sturdy wooden fence or tall metal fence, where your noisy parties can be dampened with a lower maintenance PVC or vinyl fence. Focusing on your intent makes it easier to narrow the huge field of fencing materials and styles.

Once you know what you’re going to use to make that fence, the rest is a piece of cake. It goes something like this:

1. Plan your post positions ahead of time so you don’t end up with some weird little section of fence at the end. Recommended spacing of posts will depend on your fence style, height and materials.
2. With the posts planned, it’s time to dig. Depending on your location, holes as deep as 30 inches are recommended. You’ll want to backfill the hole with cement or crushed angular gravel until it’s tightly packed. Leave the posts a day or two for your material of choice to set and settle in place.
3. Run your horizontal rails across the fence posts, either on your side of the fence (so you have the nice side of the fence facing you) or on your neighbor’s side (so the nice side is facing them). Generally speaking, it’s a good idea to have wooden fence pickets face an area you will always have access to in case any need to be replaced or treated.
4. Once you’ve chosen a side and installed the rails, you can put on the pickets. At this point, you’re done, save sealing wooden fences. You should wait a few days after installation for sealing.

Fences are Time Consuming Projects

Maybe fence building isn’t your thing, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up having a glorious fence of your very own. Just reach out to me, and I’ll refer you to some real professionals in your area. With Summer just around the corner, you’ll soon be ready for breezy evening entertaining in the privacy of your newly fenced yard.