We built a fence!
When we bought our home, one of the things I loved most was the land. Our home is situated on almost 6 acres and although most of it is wooded, we have decent sized backyard. The only downfall was that there was no fence yet. With 3 dogs at the time we knew we’d have to get a fence up ASAP. We bought a 10×10 dog kennel as a temporary safe place for the pig to be but we knew he needed his own pen. When we added a 4th mutt to the mix I started calling around for quotes. We needed around 375 linear feet of fencing and we were quoted $5,500 by one company and $7,500 by another. Ouch. After seeing the prices, my husband decided this was a project he’d tackle on his own! So we took the measurements and did some math. We calculated how much wood we needed and ordered everything from home depot! Before you order one thing you should take into account is your access points. Our drive way buts right up against our fence(we have a side-entry garage). We decided that we wanted to have at least 1 large access spot. We chose to do a 10 foot drive through gate on the side that is against our driveway and a 5 foot walkthrough gate on the other side that has our exterior basement door. At some point we would like to put a pool in and that will require heavy machinery, having a large access point to bring the machinery in and out of the yard will be necessary. Consider what you plan to use the yard for and some potential goals/dreams for your yards future. Once you have everything measured and designed and your access points chosen, you are ready to order. If you are looking to build a fence on your own you will need:
- Treated Wood 4×4 Posts
- Treated Wood 2×4 Rails
- Treated Wood Pickets
- Cement (1.25 bags per post)
- Post Level
- Gravel (1/2 bag per post)
- Auger
- String
- Ground Marking Paint
- Exterior Screws/Nails
We began by using string to make our lines to see exactly where we wanted the fence. Placing string out will give you a real feel for what size yard you will have and it will keep your fence lines straight. Having straight lines is very important when fencing. Next we measured out the distance between the posts. We chose to do 8 feet between our posts. I found that the standard was 6-8 feet between posts. Home depot sells both 6 foot and 8 foot 2x4s so be sure to order the correct length boards. We’d measure out the 8 feet and mark it with the ground marking paint. Then we laid out all of our posts and rails. We put one post in front if each mark and 3 rails between each post. Once we were sure our distances were correct we began digging holes. We went around with the auger and overall it was a pretty smooth process. Be sure to keep your fence as far away from trees as possible. There were a couple of holes that we had to deal with large rocks and tree roots and that REALLY slows the process down. Once all the holes were dug, at least 2 feet deep, we went around and filled the holes with half a bag of gravel. This will help with water drainage. Then we stuck our post in and mixed around 1 and 1/4 bags of concrete per post. This will vary depending on your fence height, how deep your holes are, and how much gravel you put in but overall try to budget for 1 bag per post with some extras. After a few days, working mainly after work and with the help of some friends, we had all the posts set. I should also mention we tried to pour the concrete when we knew wed have dry weather for 24 hours. You want your concrete to cure in as dry of conditions as possible.
Once the concrete was cured we were ready to set the rails. We used 3 rails between each post. We did one rail close to the ground, one about a foot from the top, and one in the middle between the 2. We tried to keep the rails aligned all the way down when possible and staggered the rails when necessary.
Once we had secured all of rails in place we ready to begin installing the pickets. We found the easy way to do this was with 2 people. One person set up the picket and the other secured it in place. Once they had their system down this went relatively quickly. We chose to use exterior screws throughout the process(instead of framing nails) so this took some extra time. Our lot has a gentle slope, the way we chose to work around the slope was to run each board to the ground with about a half-inch of clearance.
Once we had all of the pickets up it was time to start working on our gates! Gates come preassembled or you can build them yourself. We chose to do an in between. We used an iron framing gate kit. Using this method you use wood to build the gate and screw the iron frame to it. The iron frame helps the gate from sagging over time.
Over all, this cost us around $3,000 in materials which is a $2,500-$4,500 savings in labor based on the quotes we recieved. I should also note those quotes did not include labor and materials for the pig pen, whereas our overall cost does include the materials.
Stay tuned! Later this week I will be posting about our pig pen!
