Small Fence, Big Difference (Part 1)

As they say on Letterkenny, "back to chorin'". Today's post covers our building a 7 meter (20 foot) fence between our new neighbor's fence and NewOldHouse. We did this entirely ourselves with all salvaged wood. The only new materials were the gate supports, hinges and latches. Since there are only 2 of us working on this, around jobs and such, it is taking a while, so this is split into multiple parts.

before image

Before I get into it, you are probably wondering why we did this when the kitchen is non-existent. Great question. It starts with the dog, Tuukka. He is very curious and wants to be in everything. We knick-named him "pedibus" because of how much he wants to be underfoot. So, if we need to get after some serious demo, or something, we need to contain him. The backyard is big and wild.. and almost completely enclosed with fence. The space between the neighbor's fence and our house is open, so when we put him in the backyard, we find him in the front shortly thereafter.

Get Material

Backing up a couple of months, Boo was out walking Tuukka when she saw a fencing company tearing down a neighbors fence. In her usual way, she asked what they were up to and what they were doing with the remains. It turned out some of the fence was bad, some of it was good, but the neighbor wanted the whole thing replaced. So, the fencing guys put the really bad stuff in their trailer and left the mediocre to good fencing in a pile on the curb. In 2 loads with ToyoTruck, we collected enough material to build more than what we needed. The main posts were not too great, so we will probably not re-use many of them. The cross-pieces are a mix also, but mostly in decent shape; many were recent replacement boards. Last, we look at the actual pickets. This fence was at least 5 feet high, and we are building a 4-foot fence. So, any board which has limited rot on the bottom is fair game. Some boards were in good shape, but most have some rot at the bottom and the top is worn.  Again, if we can get 4 feet out of a board, it fits our purpose. Since the fence we are building will be more traditional-picket, with air space between the pickets, and the fence we salvaged was solid, we have twice as many to think about as we need for the same distance.

Plan

diggin holes

Boo and I spent a Saturday morning, wandering around with coffee, measuring tape and a level to decide where to put our fence. We have a power meter on the house, so that needs to be available to the power company. That defined the furthest towards the street it could go. Less than a foot further back, is the downspout. We preferred having that in the backyard, so the fence is going into that spot in between. There is a small flower garden there, and then open space to the neighbor's fence. We intend to put a garage in the back one day, and we would like to be able to pass through without having to open a big ol' gate to do so. To remedy, we decided to have a short section of fixed fence from the house to the edge of the flower garden. There, we would put a 1 meter person gate. The rest of the line from that gate to the neighbor's fence would be a 4 meter opening, with 2 2-meter gates so a car could pass between. The weight of the person gate should be relatively small, and with the hinge on the flower garden side, there will be sufficient ballast. The car-gates, however, cannot be free-swinging gates. I figure that no matter how deep I set the post between the person gate and the adjacent car gate, that car gate will pull on it and eventually loosen it. So, the car gates will get wheels.

Prep Material

this took a long time

Free wood is not as "free" as it sounds. Each picket needs to be removed from the cross-pieces, the screws and nails removed and then cut to length. I started simply by removing pickets and the fasteners from the pickets and cross-pieces, leaving them in corresponding piles. I spent spare cycles around work days and other commitments to collect a pile of pickets nearly 3 feet high and twice as wide. This took a lot longer than I expected. We borrowed a table saw to rip the boards down from their existing 5 inches wide down to 3 inches wide. Again, this creates an opportunity to cut off splits or bad edges. But each board takes multiple cuts (up to 4, right?) to get right. We delayed the shaping of the pickets until after we got some of the fence supports up.

For posts, we had a couple of long pressure-treated 4x4 posts already on the property. For the 3rd post, we took the best-looking, longest from the salvaged fence. It was also pressure treated and look less than a couple of years old.

Dig Holes, Place Poles

holes dug

With a rough plan in place, we got into details, marking exactly where each post would go. Once satisfied, I marked the spot with spray paint. To collect the dirt, I laid out a tarp. We had an old post-hole digger, but it would not make much of a dent in the clay soil. Instead, I started with a traditional shovel, removing the top layer, tossing the dirt under the grass-plug onto the tarp. Once I got down to the top of the shovel (6 inches?) I switched to a pry-bar to loosen the clay and then a small plastic tub from the recycling to remove the loosened soil. In this manner, I dug 3 holes 24 inches deep, each taking about an hour. While I was digging, Boo went out and got us 10 gallons (2 5-gallon buckets full) of 3/4-minus gravel.

One post at a time, we put a few inches of gravel in the bottom of the hole, tamped it with the fence post and then set the post in place. Boo confirmed vertical with a level on 2 sides while I added gravel and tamped over and over again until the post was secure. After the first post was set, we also checked that the placement within the hole was in a straight line and then followed the same vertical / gravel / tamp cycle. Once all 3 posts were in, we watered the holes to press out the air, and then added more gravel and tamped again. We topped the last 1/2 inch of the hole with soil and then made sure there was a mound around the post, again tamping. In theory, this should dissuade rain from running down along the post, weakening the foundation. We will see.

I took a few weeks of work around work to get this far. We have steel brackets for building the gates so they will not only be held together with wood 2x4's and wood screws. I will get after that assembly and more material prep in the next post.

Thanks, as always, for following along-