It's been another lovely weekend in W Sussex, and having finished my gardening tasks for today it's the perfect evening for sitting in the sun with a glass of something. So I am :) However, the best place for the sun this time of the day is also the place with the best view of the falling down fence... It's been like it since the strong winds at the beginning of the year. It's still standing, but it has an impressive lean and it's only a matter of time before it goes completely. The problem is, the posts have rotted in the concrete they're set in, so replacing just the posts will mean taking down most of the fence, digging out the concrete and re setting new posts. Or, take it down and put up a new one, staggered from the position of the original...
I actually prefer the look of a nice beech hedge, but not only will that take an age to grow we do already have more than enough to hedges to maintain already. So that does leave either fence or a wall. Trouble is, fences also require maintenance, albeit less frequently than hedges, which is why this post exists...
Does anyone know what the going rate for building a brick wall? Ideally 5 or 6, high? It'd need to be around 40' long, which is suspect is rather pricey. And for comparison what should I be paying decent fence of the same dimensions? All input appreciated :)
Thanks
Peter.
|
>> The problem is, the posts have rotted in the concrete they're set
>> in, so replacing just the posts will mean taking down most of the fence, digging
>> out the concrete and re setting new posts.
This option might be worth looking at. It's relatively cheap and you won't have to dig out your concrete:
Metpost Spikes
tinyurl.com/zakjoow
Last edited by: Clk Sec on Sun 31 Jul 16 at 18:10
|
|
Thanks, yes, I have seen the, and I guess if i took down the existing and put it up with posts staggered a few feet from the existing, that would be the most economical solutions of the problem? I'd just have to trim or replace one of the panels?
|
>> Thanks, yes, I have seen the, and I guess if i took down the existing
>> and put it up with posts staggered a few feet from the existing
You can just bang the metpost into the hole that the snapped off post is in - they make one for that.
www.diy.com/departments/metpost-steel-repair-spur-w75mm-d75mm/38176_BQ.prd
I've used a few when I haven't needed to repalce the whole fence.
|
>> I've used a few when I haven't needed to repalce the whole fence.
Problem is the current rotten wood posts are set in concrete, so replacing like-for-like means digging out the existing concrete first to get the new post in the right place :(
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 1 Aug 16 at 00:53
|
>> Problem is the current rotten wood posts are set in concrete, so replacing like-for-like means
>> digging out the existing concrete first to get the new post in the right place
>> :(
I had some that broke at the base in a high wind. I just hammered the repair posts into the hole in the concrete with the remnant of the post in it. That's how they work. You need the block to hammer on to, about £4, and a big hammer.
|
>> I had some that broke at the base in a high wind. I just hammered
>> the repair posts into the hole in the concrete with the remnant of the post
>> in it. That's how they work. You need the block to hammer on to, about
>> £4, and a big hammer.
>>
Ah I see!! Makes sense - thanks :)
|
The repair Metposts that hammer into old concrete probably work better than the naked ones. With a virgin install they have a tendency to be deflected by any stones etc in the soil. Making it very difficult to get upright, and in the correct place!
Probably depends on the soil characteristics of your garden.
|
>>I've used a few [Metposts] when I haven't needed to repalce the whole fence.
Not a fan. They work ok when there are a few along an otherwise normal and stable fence. But when they are the only support then the wind & wind/rain will make the fence loose and wobbly in quite short order - depending, of course, on the ground that you are going in to.
You don't want to do this job too often, so choose between a good fence done properly and a wall.
You need to consider timeframes and available finance.
Simplistically, for example, if you are thinking to sell the house in 10 years time, then you want something that will last at least 15 years, or you'll have to choose between doing it twice or having a less than attractive to buyers view.
Clearly if you will be there a long time and have the wherewithal, then a wall is a better idea. Failing one of those two, then I'd recommend a fence with concrete posts. I wouldn't recommend slotted posts, they rattle. Use the ones with holes through which you can hammer dowels into for nailing. Replacing a panel only then requires cutting a couple of nails.
|
Do the job properly.
Concrete posts
tinyurl.com/jj3hs8l
Then before you slit the new panels in, slot gravel boards in:
tinyurl.com/h77e6ma
Fence panels will last longer, and if replacements needed later, a five minute job. (Other builders merchants are available etc).
|
|
Thankyou. Maybe I'm being unduly fussy, but I'm not sure concrete fence posts are really what I'm looking for aesthetically, though undoubtedly they are a practical solution to the problem... It's a difficult balance between aesthetics, price, and maintenance requirements...
|
"... I'm not sure concrete fence posts are really what I'm looking for aesthetically..."
You can paint concrete posts - masonry paint or concrete floor paint. Paint them to match the wood of the fence or choose a contrasting colour - maybe not too much of a contrast!
I've no idea of the cost of a long high brick wall but I'd be willing to bet that it far exceeds the cost of a wooden fence with concrete posts.
If you do use concrete posts, it's worth getting the right tools for the job: a post-hole spade which removes the minimum amount of earth (thus avoiding using a lot of unnecessary post mix); and also a digger/breaker that loosens stuff first, essential if you have hard or stony ground.
For example:
tinyurl.com/jv736zv
tinyurl.com/zb8yvdy
Also, use special quick-dry post cement - it hardens while you hold the post vertical - no need to prop the post up while it sets.
|
For a pricing idea, neighbour got sick of repairing wooden fence and has just replaced it with a metal one.
30 feet, £3500.
|
|
Ouch!! What does a metal fence look like? Is that posts and panels?
|
It looks hideous to my eye, like a prison thing. But he seems happy and it doesn't border my garden. I'm sure it won't need replacing in this geologic era.
If if any interest, last time I fixed a post in concrete I used a thing called something like "fence buddy" which was sub £20. Details if wanted could be found. Metal stick thing with holes, you hammer into concrete at base, then screw to old fence post. Did the job.
Edit. Called Post Buddy. Oh and the £3500 was for everything, yes.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Sun 31 Jul 16 at 18:40
|
I had 18 panels (6ft) of 5ft and 7ft overall height with an angled drop between, concrete posts and plinths, remove and dispose of the old (wooden) posts and panels, for just over £1300, 4 years ago.
The concrete posts aren't an aesthetic problem for me, since the fence has shrubbery in front at all the places it might be visible from the house/garden.
|
|
I'd also go for concrete posts. I had mine done last year and they actually look quite good, although that is of course a matter of personal taste. The big advantage is when the inevitable happens and panels need replacing it's just a matter of lifting one out and dropping a new one in.
|
If you can afford it I would go for a wall. Permanent and a fantastic asset in a garden to protect tender plants. I reckon a wall as you describe will cost £2,000 plus though. This site provides an estimator.
www.whatprice.co.uk/costs/garden-wall-cost-calculator.php
|
>> If you can afford it I would go for a wall. Permanent and a fantastic
>> asset in a garden to protect tender plants. I reckon a wall as you describe
>> will cost £2,000 plus though. This site provides an estimator.
>>
>>
>> www.whatprice.co.uk/costs/garden-wall-cost-calculator.php
>>
>>
While expensive, I have to admit that's less than I thought... And, it is (in my lifetime at least..) a permanent solution!
|
|
Concrete posts and plastic panels are what my neighbour put in 7 years ago. Looks fine - easy to do, minimal maintenance , 30 year life.
|
I would love a walled garden. Second hand bricks might provide a nice weathered look.
Are you ever amazed when you visit stately homes surrounded by a perimeter wall several mile long. The one round Woburn for example seems to go on forever. I often think of the poor brickies faced with such a daunting task. Probably paid tuppence a day too.
|
>And for comparison what should I be paying decent fence..
I had a 30m section of fence replaced in April. Concrete posts and gravel boards with pressure treated 22mm closeboard attached to 75mm x 75mm arris rails.
Done in 3m sections it worked out at £60 per linear metre incl. VAT and removal of the old fence.
|
Bought some new garden fence panels from this company about two years ago:
www.edecks.co.uk/dept/31/Fence-Panels
It actually worked out cheaper per panel to order one or two or more than might be required (including delivery) as there is a point where this situation is reached - the extra ones are used as spares.
|
|
The last time I had a fence down in a gale, a nearby house had part of the garden wall down too. Wind and badgers have put me off fence panels altogether. It's now a picket fence to allow the wind through and a hole to let the badgers through. The lack of privacy is minimal - not the negative factor which I thought it might be.
|
>> Done in 3m sections it worked out at £60 per linear metre incl. VAT and
>> removal of the old fence.
At £60 per linear metre for a new, quality, fence I think I'd be 'happy' paying around twice that for a wall, on the basis that it will definitely outlast me. The question is, can I actually get a wall for that? Time to find some builders I think... If I had the time I'd quite like to learn bricklaying...it would be very satisfying building a wall, but might take some time...!
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 1 Aug 16 at 00:54
|
Does your fence need to be solid?
I am just about to build another fence at one side of my property and it will be a ranch style to match the rest. Posts every 1200mm (or is it 1600), boards are 4800mm long and I usually leave about a 50mm gap between each board. Lets the wind get through and the previous fences I have done are still standing and are solid.
And can't find the price list to hand but don't think it is anywhere near £60 per metre doing it this way (of course what height you require will be a factor in this)
|
I had my fence replaced by a local well-regarded firm last year. Mixture of standard panels and boarded sections. It was £1800 for 100'. The old posts were rotted in concrete and, while I don't know exactly what they did, it wasn't something they worried about and just cracked on. They didn't use metal spikes though and the result is very good. I got them to use oak posts which should last well.
A wall would have cost a lot more but look better.
I think fencing is one of those jobs where doing it myself would have saved a few bob but taken a lot longer with much cussing and bodily strain.
On the subject of walls built for the landed gentry I believe many were an early form of job creation for returning soldiers or out of work labourers in the days before the welfare state. Might be a bit of a myth but I've heard it more than once.
|
Just priced my fence.
For a 12.5m long ranch fence, inc posts, slats and postfix, cost is £160.00
|
Bricklaying isn't technically challenging. Winston Churchill used to do it for relaxation.
I've done a little in my time. There's a short 5ft tall wall coming from the corner of this house, with a hook at the open end, which was my doing 20 or 30 years ago or even more. It's on a rubble and concrete footing, not very deep, but it shelters the flower beds behind it. Just a single course of bricks, but using sand and cement rather than the more flexible, rural 'pug'. That makes the wall very rigid. The rounded cement fillet at the top has suffered frost damage and is in pieces really, but still where it ought to be.
|
There's a fig tree at the top of the flowerbed which virtually conceals the wall, having outgrown it over the years. One of the nippers brought me a mainly green, smallish fig today and it wasn't bad at all.
In a good warm summer there are lots of figs the proper colour. But unless things look up this month it looks as if this won't be a good year for figs.
|
|
Not a good year for figs AC. Ours is already dropping leafs and the figs haven't ripened.
|
It its strange how some fences last.One of our fences is about 35 years old.Wooden post in concrete and still standing.I treat the post once a year drilled some holes at the base of the post.
Filled it with creosote and keep treating it once a year.
I like to see a nice wall if done properly always looks better than fencing.
|
>> I like to see a nice wall if done properly always looks better than fencing.
Me too Dutchie. Done a bit of wallin' in my time squire...
I like especially dry stone walls of the sort I've seen in a lot of places from Somerset to the Welsh marches. Terrific walls, often very high, in Connemara too. 'There are too many stones altogether,' I was once told very seriously there. I've repaired a few, but with more enthusiasm than competence. It's not as easy as it looks, can take a lot of time when you're an amateur.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 1 Aug 16 at 17:13
|
There are a few in Yorkshire also Armel.Cleverly done looks simple but it isn't.
Our first little house I pointed the house gable wall.Took me forever after work but I did it.I have a look sometimes and the pointing is still ok after 40 years.It looks amateurish but the present owner is happy with it.
I have got some more pavers to lay ordered some today.It never ends.
|
Slight thread drift but has anyone ever used a mechanical hole post digger.
Something like this?
www.gap-group.co.uk/product-catalogue/134-post-hole-borers
|
I've got a manual version of that... It looks bit like this...
tinyurl.com/h3xve3f
And it's surprisingly easy to use. Soil dependant of course. I've seen the mechanised ones in use, but always with two operators I think...
|
|
To be honest, much of it doesn't really need to be solid... But some does, and I'd like a consistent look I think... Perhaps a wall could be lower, and just raised in the key area...
|
|
How about a low wall, with either brick pillars or posts every so often, with the gaps filled by fence panels? Best of both worlds?
|
Neighbour behind us has a shared fence with us, but the house is offset so we only overlap by a couple of panels.
The posts rotted and the panels cam down a few months ago, so we agreed as he wanted to change all his fence around the whole of his garden he would go ahead and we would just make a contribution for our share.
Think he needed 12 X 6' panels and his total bill to replace them all and all new concrete posts was £900 - they look to be fairly decent panels to, not the cheapest DIY shed types.
I was a bit dubious when he said he wanted concrete posts, but they look OK
|
You can get recycled plastic imitation wooden posts in dark brown which look surprisingly realistic and feel really solid. I haven't tried them.
Met-posts are a waste of money unless you get proper zinc-dipped galvanised ones. The ordinary ones rust away after a year or two and then you have a problem of the rusted remains right in the way of where you want the replacement.
|
I'm not sure if my metpost where the galvanised ones but they have been in the ground a long time.
Before I did put them in the soil id did treat them with a few coats of paint.Also inside the metpost I covered it with engine grease and the base of the wooden post what went in it.
I must have done something right Cliff it is holding a 6 foot 4 by 2 inch plank fencing up.
|
>> I'm not sure if my metpost where the galvanised ones but they have been in
>> the ground a long time.
Same here. Many years.
|
I've seen a fox running along the top edge of a matchwood fence, in London I think. Amazing sense of balance, as good as a cat's. You'd expect it to hurt their paws.
London foxes are something else... when there are two or three of them they glare at you angrily if you disturb them when they're rifling dustbins. Quite intimidating, and they howl nastily in the night. You wouldn't want them biting you and giving you rabies.
|
>> London foxes are something else... when there are two or three of them they glare at you angrily if you disturb them when they're rifling dustbins. Quite intimidating, and they howl nastily in the night. You wouldn't want them biting you and giving you rabies.
That happened to me in Golborne Road, in the Gate. Discretion was the better part of valour, the little brutes saw me off. A bit humiliating really.
|
|
Saw one down the allotment today. Didn't seem at all intimidating or rabid. Rather splendid creature actually. I guess London affects foxes as well as people.
|
|
Rarely seen (alive) around here, either shot by farmers who encourage others to do so or you see them dead at the side of the road. No doubt plenty hiding away from shotgun or car.
|
|
My daughter, who lives in a Birmingham suburb, regularly sees three foxes sunbathing on her (rather flat) shed roof in the mornings. She sent some blurry pics and they look quite young to me.
|
I often see a fox kipping on my shed roof during the day.
There are so many foxes wandering the streets in our area even during the day.
Late at night I often see as many as a dozen in two or three miles. I have had to stop for one who just stayed in the middle of the road when I drove up to it.
They regularly mess on my lawn and also their smell is obvious, I guess marking their territory.
|
Foxes live in the field about 100 meters from our house. We occasionally see them - at night. They dig up our lawn when hungry - earthworms. And crap in our vegetable garden. And eat our pears.
They have done that for the 30 odd years we have lived here. We live and let live. as with the badgers, sparrowhawks and other birds of prey..
|
6' high wall, 40' long. 260 sq. ft of brickwork (allowing for two courses below ground level). A brick is approx 9" x 3" including mortar. 1400 bricks for a single skin; 2800 for a double wall. Allow 20p each for second hand. £600 of bricks.
If a man lays 500-600 bricks per day, five days' work. If your local B&Q has a crowd of Romanians outside looking for work you might get it done for £500 labour.
|
>> 6' high wall, 40' long. 260 sq. ft of brickwork (allowing for two courses below
>> ground level). A brick is approx 9" x 3" including mortar. 1400 bricks for a
>> single skin; 2800 for a double wall. Allow 20p each for second hand. £600 of
>> bricks.
>>
>> If a man lays 500-600 bricks per day, five days' work. If your local B&Q
>> has a crowd of Romanians outside looking for work you might get it done for
>> £500 labour.
>>
I'd love to think that was achievable, however....
Anyway, there's been some mission creep. It's now 17 6' panels, posts, gravel boards and a 6' wide gate (2 x 3', lockable etc). And a bit of ground clearance. Even so £4,300 Inc VAT is a bit rich I think :O
|
Sounds way too dear, especially if you are referring to standard ready made panels. Close boarded, bespoke fencing with top rail, gravel boards etc would come in at about half around here (SW England). Gates will bump it up a bit.
Have you had more than one quote?
|
|
I thought so, and not yet, but I will!!
|
...sans gate, it now looks not unlike my post above, showing a cost (including dismantling/removal of old fence) of £1300 by a reputable and established fencing company.
A decent quality double gate from that supplier might add £500-£600 fitted.
I suspect I may live in a cheaper area of the country for such work, but it is a hell of a difference.
|
If you want a really good gate lock.
www.gatewrights.co.uk/locks.html
I have bought several of these for DIY installations.
Lockable with a yale type key from either side.
I have not seen anything like this design ( made in Spain) .
|
very nice looking locks - seem sturdy enough! - but 2mins with a Phillips and I'd be in! ;-)
|
>> very nice looking locks - seem sturdy enough! - but 2mins with a Phillips and I'd be in! ;-)
>>
I agree if you are already over the gate.
A blob of Araldite on the screw heads would delay things.
All traded off by the ability to open the gate with a Yale type key from either side
|
As long as you secure the screws or use a security type screw, that lock looks good to me.
Our gates are bolted and have padlocks but you could unscrew the bolts if you wanted too. During the day one of our gates is sometimes left open (bike users in the house)... so this is interesting. But I don't think it would fit the style of gate we have. They are made in the same style as the close board fence panels.
|
www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/570366/romanians-say-eu-can-do-it-if-you-bq-it/
My local source of cheap labour. Going to look for a plasterer on Saturday morning. I'll let you know how it goes...
|
>>
>> My local source of cheap labour. Going to look for a plasterer on Saturday morning.
>> I'll let you know how it goes...
>>
Please do!!
|
Garden walls / fences - Clk Sec
