Fencing

[soup]

My son is "doing" a family friends garden. They talked about a fence I can see me getting roped in to help him but I have never built a fence (son has special needs so although he is quite compis I do not fancy him using a circular saw). I have no idea of sizes or anything (don't even know where it is going to be placed). She has a puppy (she puppy walks guide dogs) and is frightened it will jump over the existing wall. On trying to Google "how to build a fence" I got t something like 51 million hits.Can't really see me working my way through all of them so does anyone have a favourite fencing site?

Questions of the top of my head :-

a) Fence posts concreted in or on some sort of "ground anchor".

b) Trellis on top to both aid view and to collapse if anyone/thing tries to climb over, good idea/bad idea?

c) Location quite windy . Full panels a bad idea?

d) Vertical slats to stop puppy doing ability thing and "climbing" the fence.

e) As it's a guide dog pup should it be better trained not to loup fences (it was too small at first but now it is getting bigger).

f) Given my inexperience of fence building and son's needs (I really think this is too big a job for him). Would I be better sacking the whole idea, and telling FF she would be better getting a fencing firm in (money is quite tight for her so paying a firm would be very significant for her).

[ARW]

A photo of the wall would help.

Fence building is not difficult (usually just physically demanding).

If you have the time to help your son then go for it.

[Roger Mills]

The best fencing for a windy site is "wind fencing"! This has two layers of horizontal wood strips which are staggered so as to let the wind through. You can get ready-made fence panels with this type of construction, but IMHO, it's better to build your own fence without using panels. [See the third picture, described as "ranch fencing" on this page:

make this, proceed as follows:

• Assemble an appropriate number of 4x4 posts and 6x1 boards

• Concrete the posts into the ground at ~6' intervals

• Screw or nail the boards to one side of the posts with 4" gaps

• Fix boards to the other side of the post, again with 4" gaps, but with the boards being centred on the first side's gaps, so as to provide a 1" top and bottom overlap.

You then have a fence which you can't easily see through, but which the wind can get through.

If you're worried about dogs climbing up the boards and getting over the fence, fix some angled wire supports to the tops of the posts - angled inwards - and run two strands of wire along.

[Robin]

JOOI is there evidence of the extent to which such a fence, especailly one with overlapping boards, has lower wind loading than a conventional (close boarded) fence? I ask as I seem to recall seeing 40-odd years ago the results of wind tunnel tests for windbreaks which showed how even chicken wire offered substantial resistance, and how this increased as the gap between the wires decreased.

Let me emphasise I am not saying the fence you describe doesn't resist wind much better than ordinary fence panels or fence, but I wonder how much of that is because it is so much stronger.

[soup]

At home the neighbour on one side has @normal@ ranch style fencing whilst the neighbour on the other side has this"wind fencing" TBH this was the second choice behind vertical slats.

[Jed]

Not only that but horizontal slats make an ideal ladder for univited guests!

[Tim Watts]

The other feature of windbreak fencing is it reduces wind speed without causing lots of turbulence on the sheltered side that can happen with solid fencing.

We learnt that in O-Level physics in the 80's...

[Roger Mills]

You may have a point. On the estate where I live, there is a mixture of the type of fence with boards both side, and conventional interwoven fencing. Most of the double-sided fences are still intact after over 40 years, whereas the interwoven panels have suffered severe wind damage on numerous occasions, and have all been replaced many times. If the boarded fences *do* get damaged, they're much easier to repair because you can easily replace individual boards.

Whether the difference in performance is due to different wind loading or simply due to more robust construction, I wouldn't like to say - but I don't really care - I know which I prefer!

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

One of my neighbours put a fence on top of his front garden wall using bolt-down metal brackets which (I suppose) were masonry bolted to the top of the wall; that presupposes a wall that's rigid enough to take that. Are you thinking of a fence that goes down to the ground?

Trellis is flimsy enough that I should think an intruder could just pull it off, or at least to one side.

I think so...

Although the alternate slats idea that someone else mentioned is most often seen horizontally, you could create it with vertical slats provided you ran a few horizontal beams as well to fix them to.

[newshound]

That's a very substantial and relatively expensive fence for an ordinary garden. You can of course do this sort of double sided fence with vertical slats, making it less easy to climb.

[newshound]

Not really enough information. Panels from the sheds are relatively cheap and easy but the space may not be a convenient multiple. For "non-standard" widths, home made feather edge is probably the cheapest and most convenient option, IMHO Wickes prices and quality are reasonable. I normally screw rather than nail: easier to adjust. Just as fast with a cordless drill.

Shouldn't need a circular saw unless making a "picket" fence with pointed tops (and could do this with a panel saw). Use treated timber.

I'm not sure what leaflets Wickes have on their web site, might be worth a check. I've just put some of their square trellis panels along a party wall, and used feather edge to fill a couple of awkward gaps. Metposts are convenient, there's a tradeoff between the price and the effort of digging and concreting holes. If you have a lot of holes, a cheap auger might be worth getting (Amazon is cheaper than "sheds"). Use Postcrete rather than concrete for ease and convenience.

[Brian Gaff]

But please be very careful about adhering to the actual boundary. Blows have been exchanged between neighbours for an odd inch or so.

Brian

[GB]

There's nothing to stop you using similar construction with vertical slats. It's harder because you need to run a couple of horizontal rails and fix those to the fence posts.

[Man at B&Q]

For n panels, n-1 will be standard width. The last one is easily remade to the right size.

MBQ

[newshound]

Trellis panels come in different "weights", and you can make it more intruder-resistant by straining some fencing wire "inside" and stapling it to the structure. If you live in that sort of area.

[Man at B&Q]

If using typical posts and panels from a DIY shed they will almost certainly rot or fail. I would use the slottes concrete posts embedded in concrete with concrete gravel boards. That just l;eaves the panels which are easily replaced by sliding theold one out and new one in.

MBQ

[polygonum]

Not always very easily remade. By the time you have cut off the side rail, taken out all the staples and/or brads, cut some very thin but ridiculously difficult-to-saw timber, cut new corner joints, etc. it can be a lot of work. Further, you cannot always cut to an arbitrary width - e.g. the tiniest bit less then full width, or where a vertical component is and really needs to stay. And curved top panels. And restrictions on post positions which can force you to cut panels at both ends. And panels with integrated lattice bits at the top.

Yes - done it all. And, to my eyes, it looks pretty good. But a stupid amount of work.

Elsewhere I got some 4" posts, slapped two horizontal rails of half-round onto them - flat-side to post, then vertical slats with gaps between screwed onto them. Used a jigsaw to cut the tops to a pleasing curve - and trim the bottoms as needed. Can be much easier than buying panels. Very flexible as you can adjust so many aspects of it to fit your location. (To be honest, I actually cut what ended up like one-peg dovetails about 15 mm deep into the posts so that the half-rounds slide nicely into them and are very securely retained. Managed that simply with a circular saw. Though I could have simply screwed them in place.)

[newshound]

Agreed, but depends on how long you want it to last and what you want to spend. FWIW have just done *exactly* this at end of garden; neighbour and son did the work, we split the costs. (He wanted to hide my "natural" garden from his immaculate vegetable patch).

Metposts, especially the ones with a bolted fitting rather than drive in achieve nearly the same benefit, although fence panels will rot from the bottom without gravel boards.

Cheap fairly nice looking fence which lasts better than shed cheapest larch lap starts with 3x3 wooden posts in metposts, triangular horizontal members from Wickes fixed with the correct galvanised brackets, and feather edge uprights.

I built a shed more than 20 years ago with these feather edge boards on

2 inch sawn treated timber and while it is looking a bit tired now, it still works and has easily outlasted two commercial shiplap sheds which are now in my kindling stocks for the winter.

While "good practice" says you need to re-proof fencing every year or so, I've never bothered with the Wickes pressure treated boards.