Wood fence - anyone do it themselves?

[adventure_woman]

Has anyone installed a wood privacy fence themselves? How was it? Where did you get the fencing - is Lowe's/Home Depot the cheapest place to get it?

 

[Disneys#1fan]

We have never done a wooden privacy fence but we did build a 4' wooden fence at our previous house. We got the pickets and all of the supplies at Home Depot. We are getting ready to do a privacy fence at our current house this spring and I am planning on getting the pickets and supplies at Lowe's this time. If you go to either store's website and type in "wood fence picket", it should show you what they have in stock. I have priced the fence for our yard, which is less than 1/4 acre, to be about $900.



ETA: The process wasn't that bad. Besides being the "2nd man" on the two man post hole auger.... I think we finished the fence in about 4 days. We had about 2/3 of an acre to fence.

 

[luvMickey72]

My husband and his friend put one up in a weekend, it was just on the one side of our house against our crazy neighbors We found the best price at our Home Depot. They said it wasnt too bad, we had a row of shrubs that they had to take out first, which was the worst part. Or the worst part was our neighbor coming out every 5 min to measure if we were too close to his property!

 

[StephMK]

Wow, great timing for this question - thanks for posting this! I'd like to know too because we have been watching and waiting for ours to fall in the wind. I'm not really sure who owns it since it divides 3 houses from ours. Since we are the only ones with dogs & kids, I have a feeling it will be up to us to replace.

Is it easier if you are following current fence lines & replacing the posts? Sorry to piggyback on your question OP! Do you have a lot of yard to fence and a current survey of the property lines?

 

[rascooby]

We're debating this right now. My husband could do a good job himself, but it's so much work. He goes back and forth about the expense of paying someone. We talked to a friend who used to have a fence company and he told us to go through a fence supply company because they're much cheaper than Home Depot/Lowes. That's the Dallas area though, I don't know the story in other areas.

 

[lsenquiz]

We have done it three times. It saves alot of money. We have always gotten the lumber from either Home Depot or Lowes. The best advice I can give you is rent a post hole digger, cement your 4x4's, mark off your fence line with string before you start to dig(to keep the fence going in a straight line), and use screws to secure your pickets(we used a pneumatic nailer the first time and frequently had pickets come down) We did all three of ours over 1 or two weekends(the last one took two but was very large).

 

[trip]

We've done a combination. We had a fence company dig the post holes and cement the main posts for us. Later we got the rest of the lumber from a lowes/hd type of store and nailed them ourselves.

 

[daileyad]

We had a fence company dig the post holes and cement the main posts for us.

What did that cost? Was there like a price per post? TIA

 

[adventure_woman]

Is it easier if you are following current fence lines & replacing the posts? Sorry to piggyback on your question OP! Do you have a lot of yard to fence and a current survey of the property lines?

I did an approximate measurement today and it is about 168' to fence and a separate 12' section w/ a gate there. I called around today to just get an estimate on an installed chain link fence and it was around $1500. As a total rough estimate, I figured that the materials will cost about $800 to install a 6' wood privacy fence (that is for the non fancy basic wood panels).

I think we are going to see if we can find the rod that is buried in the ground that marks our property line and go from there - we know the dimensions of our lot.

This is all just the beginning phase of researching what the heck we are doing - I just wanted to get an idea of how difficult it would be to even install.

 

[LilyWDW]

Just know your local regulations so you don't have to tear down all your hard work and do it over (knew someone that happened to).

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

and if you have an HOA be sure to ask for "approval" (I understand the purpose of HOAs just don't love ours)

 

[trip]

What did that cost? Was there like a price per post? TIA

It was 15 years ago - I don't remember the cost. I think it was per post. It was worth it to us. They did all of the hard work.

 

[North of Mouse]

Has anyone installed a wood privacy fence themselves? How was it? Where did you get the fencing - is Lowe's/Home Depot the cheapest place to get it?

My dh has built two wood privacy fences at our first two homes and he says "no more" LOL He didn't have any problems, but we are from LA and the soil down there is easy to dig in (no rocks or clay). Here in NC there is 90% of that and only 10% good soil We had a fence company install the one here. At the first place he placed the fence very near (not on) the property line, but at the time we had good neighbors. Then neighbors moved in with big bad dog and they literally used our side fence and almost joined at the back so the dog was always in our face. He learned his lesson, and built inside the fence line enough next time that couldn't happen. We just bought boards (not picket) and he dog-eared the tops to look nice - they were a lot cheaper than buying pre-cut fence boards. We got the boards at Lowes, I think. But you do have to check first about any rules, etc. We are not in a HOA (been there - done that - hate them), but we do have protective covenants which are nice. Some HOA's will not even allow privacy fencing at all. Good luck!

 

[goofyredraider]

We did - with materials from Home Depot. It cost us less than 1/3 of the cost of all of the estimates we had received....and we used a better kind of wood than our quotes.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

One thing that really helps in fencing - go rent a nail gun if you don't own one. Home Depot and Lowes rent 'em. You have to put your reservation in, but then you can get a good professional nail gun. This will save time, effort and reduce blisters.

 

[adventure_woman]

How far off the property line do you recommend? When I talked to our township person - he said we could actually put it on the line if we wanted. (I would prefer to do it a little off, just to be safe!!)

 

[iheartdisney]

My DH and neighbor replaced ours last year when a storm blew it over. We bought all of the materials at Lowes (10% military discount!) and they knocked it out in the weekend. It was about 55 feet.
The one "upgrade" over the previous fence was that they used the metal posts= so they aren't going anywhere. Ever!
The only problem is that they bought all the supplies and installed it following a rainstorm, and as the wood dried, the precise spacing that they left between the planks was lost.

 

[Natalie's Mommy]

just make sure you know the local regulations and get the proper permits. the worse would be having to pull everything up and do it again (which happened to me neighbor when he built his deck)