Good fences make good possum highways
Jul. 20th, 2017 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteOver this last winter, the fence around three sides of my house took a huge beating from the wind and rain. First the endless rain rotted the posts, then the wind shoved them over.
The previous owners of this place made some wonderful decisions about the layout, and some nice aesthetic decisions as well, but they must have been distracted when it came to the fence. The posts holding it up were all untreated wood hammered straight down into dirt. No cement footings. Not even gravel. In a relatively short amount of time, bugs ate so many holes in them that they just crumbled away.
Well, I knew a proper fence needed proper posts. I asked one of the local contractors how much it would cost to rebuild all the fences with cement and treated wood. He walked around with a measuring tape, thought for a little bit, and then said:
"About seven thousand dollars."
Holy crap-o-noley!! I talked to another contractor. He quoted me six thousand. That's still insane, but at least it's going in the right direction. I had a recommendation for a pair of handymen, so I called them up. It took them about six weeks to get back to me. They stalked around the fence, debated with each other like a Laurel-And-Hardy act about the best way to rebuild it, complete with waving arms and pacing in circles, and then said they'd get back to me with a quote.
Two months went by, during which my messages went unanswered, so I gave up on them. Perhaps I could do it myself?
I did some "research", in the form of ten YouTube videos and a bunch of web pages. It was technically possible, but a huge amount of labor. Some of the fence I could take apart and rebuild with better posts. Other parts of it, I would need to demolish and replace entirely, because the wood was too far gone. I made a list of tools, tried to research lumber prices, then got distracted by my day job.
When I came back to the task, it was because the rear fence was halfway collapsed into the neighbor's driveway, and the only way I could keep it upright was to rope it securely to a tree. It was time to confess:
While I pondered my own imbecility, I had some tree-trimmers over to deal with the overgrown foliage in the back yard. They did very good work on an apricot tree that was overhanging the fence, and I complemented them on it, then said, "I don't suppose you know any people who are willing to rebuild a fence like this?"
Turns out, one of them knew a guy. Now I knew a guy who knew a guy. I got his number and called him that moment, while the arborists were still packing up their saws and mulching the leftover trimmings. He spoke fluent Spanish but only fragmented English. "Your cousin the arborist recommended you!" I said. "Can you rebuild a wooden privacy fence, with cement footings?"
He said he could. He came over the next morning and examined the fence while we chatted, then he took a bunch of measurements and said he'd consult about lumber prices and get back to me. Two days later he sent me an estimate: 3800 dollars.
Now, that's still a lot of money. But it's just about HALF of what the official contractor quoted me. I said, "Let's do it," and I cut him a check for 10% of the amount to get started.
Here's what the back yard looks like with no fence. Weirdly exposed!
Here is what a proper post-hole looks like. They dug each one two feet deep and tamped the soil down with large metal bars.
They used thread to line up the postholes precisely. Turns out the old fence wasn't quite straight. They brought in a cement cutter and took a notch out of the neighbor's patio so they could reposition the hole, then repaired the cement after pouring the cement for the posthole beneath it.
Hmmm, delicious concrete! Concrete is amazing stuff. It doesn't get wet and then "dry" like glue. It actually absorbs the water into itself, growing crystals that interlock with each other to make one solid object. This is why you can create concrete posts even underwater.
Now that is a proper post.
The next day, with the posts set, it was time to put the framing up and start rebuilding the fence. Check out all that fencing laying around!
They used treated wood for the framing as well, and cut it onsite. They also cut custom pieces for the corner of the fence, interlocking it with the neighbor's fence on the other side to make one continuous structure. The whole thing was put together with screws, rather than nails, which is the more modern way of doing things.
In the end, I figured it was money well spent. The guy showed up on time, took exactly as long as he said he would, put all the dirt and plants back in their spots, hauled away the old fence, and even re-attached my irrigation pipes to the new fence without damaging them. If he had a "Yelp" page I would have given him 42 stars.
Now all I had to do was apply sealer to the whole thing:
Warning: Applying sealer to a fence takes a very, very long time. My mistake was trying to do it with tools at hand, such as a paint tray and a roller. The smart way is to use a large spray bottle, which you pressurize with a hand pump. I switched to that partway through.
That is a crapload of fence. It was a crapload of brushwork.
But now, I have a fence that will last 20 years, as long as I keep re-applying sealant to it every couple years. Yaaay! Another thing off the maintenance list.... For the time being.
The previous owners of this place made some wonderful decisions about the layout, and some nice aesthetic decisions as well, but they must have been distracted when it came to the fence. The posts holding it up were all untreated wood hammered straight down into dirt. No cement footings. Not even gravel. In a relatively short amount of time, bugs ate so many holes in them that they just crumbled away.
Well, I knew a proper fence needed proper posts. I asked one of the local contractors how much it would cost to rebuild all the fences with cement and treated wood. He walked around with a measuring tape, thought for a little bit, and then said:
"About seven thousand dollars."
Holy crap-o-noley!! I talked to another contractor. He quoted me six thousand. That's still insane, but at least it's going in the right direction. I had a recommendation for a pair of handymen, so I called them up. It took them about six weeks to get back to me. They stalked around the fence, debated with each other like a Laurel-And-Hardy act about the best way to rebuild it, complete with waving arms and pacing in circles, and then said they'd get back to me with a quote.
Two months went by, during which my messages went unanswered, so I gave up on them. Perhaps I could do it myself?
I did some "research", in the form of ten YouTube videos and a bunch of web pages. It was technically possible, but a huge amount of labor. Some of the fence I could take apart and rebuild with better posts. Other parts of it, I would need to demolish and replace entirely, because the wood was too far gone. I made a list of tools, tried to research lumber prices, then got distracted by my day job.
When I came back to the task, it was because the rear fence was halfway collapsed into the neighbor's driveway, and the only way I could keep it upright was to rope it securely to a tree. It was time to confess:
While I pondered my own imbecility, I had some tree-trimmers over to deal with the overgrown foliage in the back yard. They did very good work on an apricot tree that was overhanging the fence, and I complemented them on it, then said, "I don't suppose you know any people who are willing to rebuild a fence like this?"
Turns out, one of them knew a guy. Now I knew a guy who knew a guy. I got his number and called him that moment, while the arborists were still packing up their saws and mulching the leftover trimmings. He spoke fluent Spanish but only fragmented English. "Your cousin the arborist recommended you!" I said. "Can you rebuild a wooden privacy fence, with cement footings?"
He said he could. He came over the next morning and examined the fence while we chatted, then he took a bunch of measurements and said he'd consult about lumber prices and get back to me. Two days later he sent me an estimate: 3800 dollars.
Now, that's still a lot of money. But it's just about HALF of what the official contractor quoted me. I said, "Let's do it," and I cut him a check for 10% of the amount to get started.
Here's what the back yard looks like with no fence. Weirdly exposed!
Here is what a proper post-hole looks like. They dug each one two feet deep and tamped the soil down with large metal bars.
They used thread to line up the postholes precisely. Turns out the old fence wasn't quite straight. They brought in a cement cutter and took a notch out of the neighbor's patio so they could reposition the hole, then repaired the cement after pouring the cement for the posthole beneath it.
Hmmm, delicious concrete! Concrete is amazing stuff. It doesn't get wet and then "dry" like glue. It actually absorbs the water into itself, growing crystals that interlock with each other to make one solid object. This is why you can create concrete posts even underwater.
Now that is a proper post.
The next day, with the posts set, it was time to put the framing up and start rebuilding the fence. Check out all that fencing laying around!
They used treated wood for the framing as well, and cut it onsite. They also cut custom pieces for the corner of the fence, interlocking it with the neighbor's fence on the other side to make one continuous structure. The whole thing was put together with screws, rather than nails, which is the more modern way of doing things.
In the end, I figured it was money well spent. The guy showed up on time, took exactly as long as he said he would, put all the dirt and plants back in their spots, hauled away the old fence, and even re-attached my irrigation pipes to the new fence without damaging them. If he had a "Yelp" page I would have given him 42 stars.
Now all I had to do was apply sealer to the whole thing:
Warning: Applying sealer to a fence takes a very, very long time. My mistake was trying to do it with tools at hand, such as a paint tray and a roller. The smart way is to use a large spray bottle, which you pressurize with a hand pump. I switched to that partway through.
That is a crapload of fence. It was a crapload of brushwork.
But now, I have a fence that will last 20 years, as long as I keep re-applying sealant to it every couple years. Yaaay! Another thing off the maintenance list.... For the time being.
