Surveying and shrinking pickets

[micky]

>> I noticed that somone around here has a 6' wood stockade fence. >>

>> A few years after it was erected, the pickets had shrunk widthwise so >> that there is a crack between every two pickets and one can see into his >> yard. >> >> Does this mean the fence builder used wood that had not aged >> sufficiently when the pickets were cut? >> >> What woods are commonly used to make pickets? Pine? Would pine >> show sap? This wood doesn't have any sap or dried sap. > >Around here, pickets are made from cedar. I have a neighbor who made >his fence without permanently affixing the pickets to the rail, by >sandwiching the tops and bottoms of pickets between two pieces of wood >(think of a tongue and groove). > >He installed it this way with the pickets touching, and after they >shrunk, he pulled them together and then nailed them in place. No cracks. > >Jon

Wow. I've never seen anyone so careful, afaik.

Thanks, Ed. I will check when it gets rainier.

I already know that the fence builder didn't use galvanized nails (there were rust stains running down from each nail) , and the phone number on his little sign on the fence is disconnected, and this week for the first time I measured the distance between his fence and mine.

There is a 6' easement between his townhouse lot and one side of mine, This is for people in the "inside of the group" to walk through to get to the back of their houses.

Does that mean that no part of the fence, not even the bulge of the semi-round pickets, should be within the 6' area??? I would think so.

I finally measured the distance between our two fences, and it's 1 or 1

1/2 inches shy of the 6' in the two places I measured. The guy I bought the house from had a survey made before he had the fence built, but I'm sure my neighbor didn't, and I figure the cheap fence builder he used just measured 6', or a little lesss, from my fence.

But I havent' figured out for sure how to go from the survey dimensions to the fence location. There are two only two measurement from the house to the boundary, one each, from the front and rear outside corners of my house, that should go, iiuc, to the boundary of my lot. ***

There is a 6' easement between his townhouse and one side of mine, AND there is a 5' easement on two other sides of my house, on the outside of the lot, between my house and my property line, which on those two sides coincides with the whole neighborhood property line.**

There are only two measurements that go to the edge of the lot (although one of them only goes to where the fence is now (where it was supposed to be built after the survey was made.))

One measurement from the FRONT corner indeed goes 3 feet beyond the fence, just about to to the center of the easement between the two houses. The midpoint of this 6' easement (between two buildings) is my property line, and his.

But the measurement written on the survey from the REAR outside corner of the house to the lot boundary matches the measurement I measured to the fence, the fence, not the lot boundary. One of the measurements from the corner must be a mistake, right? Which would be wrong, the measurement that ends at the property line, or the one that ends at the fence line?????? (given that the fence is supposed to be either

3' or 5' closer to the house than the property line is. 3' where it's half of the 6 between me and my neighbor, and 5' where the entire property ends. )

My lot is 6-sided and it's too complicated to describe how all the above is possible, but it is. If I can I'll make a drawing and post it, but my questions don't really relate to the shape of the lot.

No metal pins were put in during the survey and neither of us wants to pay for another survey. So the worse his fence and the installers look the more it looks like they didn't put the fence in the right place either,

**(And on the last side of my lot, my other neighbor abuts my land and my house, and there is no space or easement at all.)

I meant to only discuss the fence, but it led to the survey.

Thanks a lot.

[Don Phillipson]

Where I live, the city building permits office answers (free) questions like this, i.e. explains what an easement means, what tolerances (inaccuracies) are allowed, etc. This is normal in most parts of N. America.

[micky]

That's a good idea. Thanks. For the record, even not counting the pickets' bulge, it's 1 to 1.5 inches too narrow. But the picket is

3/4" thick. (I have a picket fence with a blank space next to every picket. He has a stockade fence.)

I think I'll go in to the permit office and ask the question in person, and give someone there the chance to look at the survey and confirm to me that that one measurement is incorrect. I don't know why I need confirmation. Nothing else is possible, afaic think of.