Episode 1321
DIY Fencing! How to plan+ design + build a fence the right way!
Fencing can be an easy DIY project. It is a LOT of work but it can be done correctly. Eric G and Caroline B dive into the steps to tackle a fencing project. What are some of the new materials and some of the big things to consider when taking on a project. Have you seen the new foam that replaces concete? It gets discussed in this weeks Around the House Show!
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Transcript
[00:00:12] Caroline Blazovsky: How many people do you need to do a fence like it? Do you need somebody to help hold it? Like, is it something you do with a buddy? You need a partner. I mean, was it something you would do as a single person?
[:[00:00:34] Eric Goranson: With my arm in a sling. So I wake up, I'll try
[:[00:00:43] Eric Goranson: do that. I was out trying to get when it comes to remodeling and renovating your home.
[:[00:01:04] Caroline Blazovsky: and doing well. Hello everyone.
[:[00:01:14] Caroline Blazovsky: I'm going to learn about fences.
[:[00:01:19] Eric Goranson: There is so many steps of doing a fence correctly, and I really want to do our deep dive this hour to make sure that you're doing it right, because no one likes doing projects twice. Right? No, not at all. And you know, and depending on where you're digging and what's going on, there's a lot of things to consider.
[:[00:01:57] Caroline Blazovsky: This is. My friend, [00:02:00] Dana, she fence the other guy's property line around her pool and gymnasium set for the kids.
[:[00:02:11] Eric Goranson: expensive fence. You know, here's the thing, you know, fences are not cheap. And your average, you know, survey to have a survey crew come out is about 500 bucks across the U S it's all over the board price wise, but that's a good average could be 800 bucks could be 400 bucks, but 500 is good average.
[:[00:02:54] Eric Goranson: So depending on how old and how it was laid out, sometimes those mistakes happen, but it's good to figure out where [00:03:00] those lines are. It's amazing
[:[00:03:11] Caroline Blazovsky: And they spent quite a bit of money on their pool fence. And the neighbor said, Hey, it's on my property. And she said, no, it's not. And they both had surveyors come out and they were wrong. It was on his property. They had to take it down,
[:[00:03:37] Caroline Blazovsky: What's an example of a code? My house. Yeah. So
[:[00:04:05] Eric Goranson: I can only go as high as three feet because they don't want it looking like you've made this corridor down the street, so you can only go three feet high. So it's one of those things you've got to really consider what the codes are in, where you can put that. How do they go
[:[00:04:26] Eric Goranson: Really easy. Just find your local building department. And then most of the time you can jump online and take a peek and see what the rules are, because they know that you're not going to have to pull a permit for the fence, but they want to make sure that you do it correctly. And my neighbor before I moved in, I was talking to him about putting the fence up.
[:[00:05:01] Eric Goranson: So
[:[00:05:08] Eric Goranson: uh, you know how it goes with the cities? It, depending on what, what, how it's run within the city. But they can come around and say, that is, uh, you know, that that's out of spec from code, they'll send you, um, you know, a violation, the mail that could find you, and then they can turn around.
[:[00:05:55] Eric Goranson: But years ago, when I was living there, they had a city council person that had a [00:06:00] water heater swapped up, they called and, and had the plumbing company come in and swap out the water. They didn't get a permit to swap out the water heater. So, yo yeah. So one of the opponents to that city council person who is on the city council went by and then filed a thing with the code office saying, Hey, they're not following code, getting.
[:[00:06:49] Eric Goranson: So it's just make sure your rules are, yeah. So. You know, and sometimes you got liability there too, because if you put it [00:07:00] out too close to the road, for instance, and maybe your neighbors backing out of the car and they get into a car accident, you don't want to be liable because they putting a fence in the wrong spot, too high.
[:[00:07:33] Eric Goranson: You got a second. I want to show you the fence. I'm doing. Tell them what you're doing. Have that discussion. Say, Hey, I might be walking on your side of the lawn over here or in your garden or wherever, find out what the rules are. So you can respect those rules because the last thing you need to do is getting into a big battle over that.
[:[00:08:03] Caroline Blazovsky: And I think neighbors like to know when you're doing something. I think it's just like a nosy thing. Right. When I see my neighbor doing something right next to me, I just it's nature.
[:[00:08:18] Eric Goranson: See, I've got some of the best neighbors I've ever had right now, which I love. They're super cool. If anything, there'll be the ones coming out to help. You know what I mean? They'll bring me out the cold beer in the afternoon, so that's always good.
[:[00:08:49] Eric Goranson: You might've just given away that piece of property, your neighbor, they can claim, even though you own it. So making sure, even if you're not putting a fence in, [00:09:00] maybe that fi if it's a, if it's a questionable lot line, knowing where that is and making sure you got that survey done could be very inexpensive insurance for you to protect your property and where it is.
[:[00:09:29] Eric Goranson: And, uh, her and my dad decided that they were going to do it out of my probably 15 years ago. Actually it was made out of like the Trex product really. And it was a complete disaster. We'll talk about that just as soon is around the house returns.[00:10:00]
[:[00:10:23] Eric Goranson: And of course, join around the house nation, which is our closed group. So you could put up any of those fencing projects or anything else you're working on. And, uh, that is our kind of gentle place for everybody to share stuff out without, uh, having trolls in there, bashing on your project. If you've got a funny one up there posted up.
[:[00:10:52] Caroline Blazovsky: and there's so many types. So let's see there's PVC, aluminum, steel chain link, then all your [00:11:00] woods, you could do Cedar Poplar pine, then concrete, like you were talking about in California.
[:[00:11:07] Eric Goranson: Yeah, you can do those, you know, like in California and Southern California, see those more concrete block walls, you know, in the city there, those work out pretty well for that. You can do a stamped, concrete, where they look like stacked rocks and their panels that come up. There's so many different types of fencing out there.
[:[00:11:36] Caroline Blazovsky: you can use pavers to like, and it's not necessarily a fence, but we have a wall system. Right. And it's done with pavers, which kinda is in, goes in that fence arena.
[:[00:11:58] Eric Goranson: Exactly. Exactly. And [00:12:00] that's, what's cool about that is that there's so many ways to do it, but I think the first thing before you pick out, which way you're going to go is to think about the maintenance in your climate that you're in.
[:[00:12:32] Eric Goranson: And so it gets to be this really dingy look. And so that can be troublesome.
[:[00:12:46] Eric Goranson: You know, Southern states might work out much better. Uh, the one thing that didn't work and about 15 years ago, like I was talking about when we went to break, my mom put in the, the Trex fencing using the Trex type material.
[:[00:13:31] Eric Goranson: Uh, it was a disaster and it looks bad. And, uh, you know, they've, my brother has gone through done some repairs, getting it looking better, but it's still not. Yeah, it's just, it was supposed to be a 50 year fence basically. And. That was not what's good for that material. It's just, it did not do well in the heat.
[:[00:13:52] Caroline Blazovsky: And I mean, how about woods? So woods like traditional, right? Does that pretty much go with any climate? Are there climates you don't want to use would either like maybe near the [00:14:00] ocean? Not a good one.
[:[00:14:10] Eric Goranson: Many pasts, you know, it's, it's naturally resistant, so it's good for that. And for instance here, that's probably the most popular fencing is Cedar, just because you can stay in it, you can do so much with it. You can put it out by the coast. It will gray and look kind of that, you know, that driftwood look great.
[:[00:14:49] Eric Goranson: Now they're down on that, you know, three, four range, you know, depending on where you go. So they're, they're getting back down and people can, can start to afford them. But let's say [00:15:00] you've got a Cedar fence board that is. You know, a six inch board that's five feet high. They make clothes thinner because it's just fencing.
[:[00:15:33] Eric Goranson: That's like 24 bucks. So it shows you the difference. Oh yeah. Between those
[:[00:15:40] Eric Goranson: I mean, it's not cheap. Fencing is never cheap. There is not a cheap solution to this, but it's one of those things that really knowing what you're going to do. And that Cedar, when it comes out is really wet. I mean, you can be putting screws in and you'll see the water.
[:[00:16:16] Caroline Blazovsky: piece of me.
[:[00:16:19] Eric Goranson: Yep. Let it dry out a little bit. And that's one thing too, is as the wood dries out, it tracks. So many times you'll see people when it's soaking wet, they'll butter it up. But knowing there's going to be a eighth of an inch gap in between them. Because as that sponge shrinks back up, it'll leave the gap in the fats.
[:[00:16:56] Caroline Blazovsky: So what other types?
[:[00:17:03] Eric Goranson: You know, it's depending on what you got going, you know, a chain link fence is really cool with kids and playing and things like that. It can be really durable. Um, if you're an area with high winds and you're not trying to create privacy, that can be really durable as well.
[:[00:17:40] Eric Goranson: And so then you're spending a lot of time and money refinishing that down the road, because it's so much easier to restate a Woodford. Versus going through and doing it on a metal one, and then concrete block is great. Or some of these concrete panels, because those are ones that create that stop sound.
[:[00:18:13] Caroline Blazovsky: what your purpose is for the fence, right? Because there are so many different aesthetically you could have big gaps, the old farm fencing, the tight wall fencing.
[:[00:18:24] Eric Goranson: And what's going to fit in well with your house and the neighborhood on top of that. So there's a lot of things to consider when we come back, let's talk a little bit of installation about some of the new tricks. There's some new materials out there to make putting fence posts in easy.
[:[00:18:51] Eric Goranson: Hey guys, you're listening to around the house with Eric, Jean Caroline, B I'm Zeke sky, and I'm going to show you how to shred it out while you're building it up. [00:19:00] Welcome back to around their house show. Carolyn and I have been talking fencing today, do an IDI Y deep dive on those tips to, uh, tackle when you want to get into this fencing project.
[:[00:19:27] Eric Goranson: Well call before you dig.
[:[00:19:41] Eric Goranson: line. Yeah. It could be three feet away from that. So make sure that you've got that figured out and sometimes those soundwaves reflect and so it can be a little bit off, so make sure, you know, Where that is because if you dig up a fiber optic line or the gas line, bad things happen, or power line, just things you got to [00:20:00] make sure I've dug up in my backyard, where somebody is a previous owner, decided to bury orange electrical cords back there.
[:[00:20:21] Caroline Blazovsky: scary though. I would worry. I'm going to find a dead body out there with electrical cords, just to kind of out there.
[:[00:20:46] Eric Goranson: That can be the size of a. Where they can be size of a VW bug. So you've got to go through and dig your fence posts before. So you know where those are going to land because you get might have to adjust where [00:21:00] that is. If I dig down and see, you know, a rock down there, that's the size of a VW bug. I'm not moving that.
[:[00:21:20] Caroline Blazovsky: that brings up a good point. Like are certain soils better for certain types of fencing?
[:[00:21:29] well.
[:[00:21:44] Eric Goranson: So you've got things to figure out, as far as the depth, your soil, your Frostline. If you're digging up in the Northeast and you've got ground that loves to heat stuff up. If you put that down 18 inches, you probably will have fence post problems done. [00:22:00] You don't want frost teams, you need to figure out where they recommend in your area, in your climate.
[:[00:22:26] Eric Goranson: There's a new product out there. Made by Seca S I K a Hmm. Or sicker, but see guys, how I said it is a fence post mix foam, ingesting foam. No more sunlight. You can sit there. No special tools, no water sets in three minutes, put your foot, your post hole in, off you go, you know, and expands, fills the voids and, and fills those in unlike.
[:[00:23:10] Caroline Blazovsky: So a lot less work, I mean, just manually care.
[:[00:23:26] Eric Goranson: But that does come up with two that does come up with, you know, two 50 pound bags of concrete. So if you go concrete mix, let's do this. I'm curious to see I'm the
[:[00:23:47] Caroline Blazovsky: What's it made out of? Does it hold up?
[:[00:24:10] Eric Goranson: Interesting one. And you're not cleaning up all the concrete mess, so I could make a strong argument for that. And you got to think about it. I mean, you've got foam there. Yeah. But you've also got concrete. You've got treated posts. You've got a lot of stuff you're working with here. So there's things to think about when you're putting in like a Cedar fence.
[:[00:24:53] Caroline Blazovsky: Like if you're in tornado alley, I would imagine,
[:[00:25:23] Caroline Blazovsky: I know there's a wind map. You can look at, I've done this for building construction, so you can actually check out it shows you all your patterns for the year of wins.
[:[00:25:42] Eric Goranson: Is key. Now, if you're doing repairs, there's a lot of different ways to do repairs with this stuff as well. And that postfix is good. What I like about the postfix is you can set that stuff in there and you can hold the post, get it settled. And that sets up in about three minutes. Then you can move onto the next one.
[:[00:26:07] Caroline Blazovsky: How many people do you need to do a fence? Like, do you need somebody to help hold it? Like, is it something you do with a buddy? You need a partner. I mean, is this something you can do as a single person?
[:[00:26:34] Caroline Blazovsky: I try this at home? Eric's a freak of nature. He could, there
[:[00:26:47] Eric Goranson: We love that. Well, I want to have the kids in the backyard that could play, you know what I mean? And, and all that stuff. So we were going to get a dog and needed to get stuff done. So I was out there. Boston that out. So we could [00:27:00] have a fence backyard, not have to worry about it. Fences are
[:[00:27:03] Caroline Blazovsky: It's something that we don't really talk about in home improvement. If you hear people talking a lot, I don't think fence is a thing that comes up, but it's so with animals, we were talking about 98 million Americans have animals. So typically you want something fenced in a lot of people have pools. I don't know what that number on that is, but you know, it's something that a lot of people need all the time.
[:[00:27:38] Eric Goranson: So it's just a, a general safety item to keep those little kids from drowning in your pool. All it takes is a neighbor kid to get out once and they get caught in that pool. You got a heck of a.
[:[00:27:58] Eric Goranson: should have.
[:[00:28:17] Eric Goranson: Like a track hoe back there and an excavator or somebody to back in and deliver the hot tub or whatever you're doing. Make sure that you've created access points. So you can get back into that backyard. We come back, we're going to wrap this up, talking about finishing and trims and gates and things like that.
[:[00:29:04] Eric Goranson: hi everybody. I'm Eric command from even novelas bam. And you're listening to around the house with Eric G and the beautiful Caroline. Welcome back to the, around the house show we've been talking about. Fencing today in our big DIY fencing special today. And that Caroline and I have been talking about the many different steps that it takes into creating that fence project and making sure you do it once and not quite frankly, on your neighbor's yard, right.
[:[00:29:37] Eric Goranson: So I wanted to talk here in this last segment about wrapping up on little details. Like for instance, when you get everything put together, Making sure that you've got it trimmed out correctly, that you've got everything put together. The, the fasteners even can be a problem. Great example, if you have Cedar that you're putting up there and you use [00:30:00] galvanized on it, those galvanized fasteners, you're going to see the gray streaks running down the front of the boards and it looks so bad.
[:[00:30:26] Eric Goranson: So stay away from that stainless stuff whenever we're away from that galvanized stuff, when you can cause it'll end up being a better look at bro. I'm overwhelmed
[:[00:30:48] Caroline Blazovsky: So even if I want to, I need to help
[:[00:31:08] Eric Goranson: I was getting like a, a pump full of dirt out of it. Cause that's all you could get. And it was just bam, bam, bam. And I was doing that for like six hours a day out there. How long did it take you to do
[:[00:31:19] Eric Goranson: thing? I bet you, I had probably 12 or 14 hours. Of digging just to get the holes done. That's not bad.
[:[00:31:47] Eric Goranson: Oh. And I'm not going to get thrown out. And that's kind of a two person dealer. No way. So that's kind of how that worked. So making sure that, of course, you've got, you know, all these pieces and parts put together, we talked about as [00:32:00] well not to break. I want you to plan out those gates, see who have access, make sure that if you've got a septic system, that somebody can pull up and get the truck over there where it needs to be, or could get a backhoe in there to repair it, making sure that you've got a wide enough gate to get the lawn mower.
[:[00:32:36] Eric Goranson: From that side or be able to dump in there. So you could actually come in there and drop off. So when I'm doing my yard work back there, if I want to get soil delivered back there, as I remake my yard in the last two years, dump truck could go back there and actually dump in the backyard and get it close.
[:[00:33:14] Eric Goranson: Cause we're going to have to put a truck back there, a big truck to get back. And I was the only one that had access
[:[00:33:32] Eric Goranson: So make sure you've got those easements there. And that's a, that's a key. Now when it comes to finishing, this is a key because you want that Cedar or wood. If you're doing a wood fan, sat has to be completely dry when in doubt, get a moisture meter and see what that wood is, are pretty easy to get on Amazon or your local hardware slash.
[:[00:34:11] Eric Goranson: So there's a lot of great finishes out there that use oil that put it back into the wood. And once it's dried out, it can really make a long lasting finisher. You're not out there every three or four years. Re-staining a fence. Cause that is not.
[:[00:34:30] Caroline Blazovsky: Oh yeah. I know the acrylic. The water-based is. Yeah, no, it is outside. The water base are not as durable. What, if you don't want to use a stain are finished, then are you going with a aluminum, like had already pre-coded aluminum fence, you could do that. They have the white, I've seen, you know,
[:[00:34:45] Eric Goranson: Yeah. He can do is any one of the vinyl, the metals, any of that stuff, you know, and that's the way to go. Do not, I still would not do the composite woods stuff where it's part wood, part composite. That's not a great way to go, but you're looking at the metal fences. The aluminum [00:35:00] is part of that. The virus.
[:[00:35:02] Caroline Blazovsky: the maintenance on that. So when they do get kind of funky, is it just power wash or what's the, what's the best way to treat
[:[00:35:24] Eric Goranson: If they get a lot of Moss and mildew on the outside of those things, then you're going to have a lot of cleaning due on anyone. Metal or plastic fences to make it look good. A black fence will be better to maintain than a white one because the white one's going to show every little detail on it. The black one it'll look dingy, but it's not going to scream.
[:[00:35:47] Caroline Blazovsky: thanks to. You put it up, you've got due diligence to do cleaning on the back. Yeah.
[:[00:36:01] Eric Goranson: On what side of the fence you're putting out. You know, there's the good neighbor fence where you've got a Cedar on either side. It doesn't matter so much when it's a chain link fence or some of the metal fences. But I like to put, when I'm building a fence, I like to put the smooth side to the neighbors side, the fancy
[:[00:36:23] Eric Goranson: You know why? Because if you have those frame members in the back, those are much easier to climb with. Ah, then that smooth face. So if I'm trying to keep people from getting into my backyard, I want that smooth side facing out towards the neighbor that looks better. Just they're harder to climate when there's nothing to put your foot on to pop up over it.
[:[00:36:46] Caroline Blazovsky: has a lot of fences in Portland. We were actually looking at properties and what different people do and they use fencing, whether you're up close. Or even farther away say you're in an acre, a quarter acre, lot to a half an acre. You use so much fencing out there. What [00:37:00] is the purpose for that? Is it just they using it for privacy?
[:[00:37:23] Eric Goranson: Um, you're trying to keep theft from happening. So, uh, that area there they're putting up fences anywhere. They can get away with them because they're trying to keep the, they're trying to create a barrier to keep crime from waiting from the house.
[:[00:37:43] Caroline Blazovsky: They weren't just using wood though. There was a lot of wood, but they used all kinds of mechanisms to keep.
[:[00:38:09] Eric Goranson: So I'm going to create a dual barrier. I could have the biggest hedge back there over there, known to mankind. I don't violate any codes that. So I can create a lot of privacy and it also helps with sound as well. That sound is something for me. That's important. And I can do something with that to get that, uh, to be a more quiet area before we go
[:[00:38:30] Caroline Blazovsky: Talk about the cement barriers for fencing, which is just amazing. He was telling me about these and they're
[:[00:38:51] Eric Goranson: So they're stamped to look like river rock. So it looks like a stacked rock wall. But it keeps sound as a sound barrier there. Great up [00:39:00] against freeways commercial areas. If you're in that home, that's near a commercial area or you've got a lot of semi-trucks rolling up and down and you want to reflect sound.
[: