Good Fences, Good Neigbors

I am a firm believer in the "Good fences make good neighbors" tenet, as well as it's sub-precept "If I have a really big fence with a lock on it, maybe my neighbors won't be able to steal my stuff."

Some of you may be familiar with my run-ins with my neighbors; you can find a taste of the crazy here, here, and here if you should be so inclined.

Needless to say, I recognized very soon after moving in that the 3-foot tall chain link fence was just NOT going to cut it and what I needed was an 8-foot tall poured concrete barrier, preferably with pieces of broken glass set into the top of it. But since the city would not grant a the permit request for the concrete wall, 10-foot deep moat, or tower from which I could pour boiling oil on intruders, I settled for a 6-foot wooden stockade fence instead. See, even Spaz likes it:
A giant wooden fence is an awesome thing to have, but it is also RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE to have someone come in and install it. I have a HUGE back yard and to have a landscaping company come and install a fence would have cost me nearly $10,000.00. Now, it's not that it is not worth it. If I had ten grand laying around, I would consider spending it on some undocumented laborers.

But, I don't have that kind of money stuffed into the mattress. Beyond that, whenever considering a huge renovation or improvement project, it is always important to consider what you are willing to put into your house and potentially not get back.

Consider this...

I purchased a home in a "potentially reviving" neighborhood. In other words, it's not revived yet. And there is no guarantee that it will.

I paid $107,00.00 for a 2200 square foot, 3 bedroom home that needed A LOT of work. Recent appraisals put it's value at $175,000.00. That leaves me about $70,000.00 of repair and improvements that I could potentially make my money back on. But do you just break even? I don't know about you, but the word "profit" is mighty appealing.

If you want to eventually sell and come out ahead ahead, you need to keep a gap between that "how much I COULD spend" and "how much I have spent."

I also took into consideration how much I did spend to purchase the house. At a cost of $10,000.00 to fence my yard, I was looking at potentially spending 10% of the purchase price on my house on fencing the yard. And I just could not justify that kind of expenditure.

So, I began to research just what it would cost if I did it myself. What I found was I could do it myself for about 1/3 of that cost, if I was willing to find my own labor. Fortunately, my younger brother still does what I tell him to, and my brother and I were able to install, over the course of 3 spring weekends, a fairly professional looking stockade fence.

In this blog I will break down what you need to do it and what the potential costs are. In future blogs, I will outline just how my brother and I did it.

The materials you will need are:

Pre-made fence panels. I used 8x6 ash "dog ear" panels.
Treated 4x4 posts. I also used posts with carved decorative tops for the gate posts.
Quickrete, a type of fast-setting concrete that you can use dry to anchor the posts. You will need about 2/3 a bag for each post.
Hinges and latches for your gates. I Installed two gates, one in front and one in back.
Deck screws, three-inch long screws to anchor the fence panels to the posts.

Total cost: $2400.00

You will also need a variety of tools, many of which can be rented:

The tools I purchased or already had were:
Manual post hole digger (bought)
3ft long level (already had)
measuring tape (already had)
Reciprocating saw (also called a "Saws-All") (bought)
Cordless drill, for driving in screws (bought)
Cordless circular saw (bought)
Electric chainsaw (already had)
A lopper (already had)
Gasoline powered auger (rented)
Wooden sawhorses (borrowed from Dad)

The gasoline auger is what made the entire process possible. This made it possible to dig the post-holes in 15 minutes each as opposed to an hour each.


The total cost of the rental was $50.00 each weekend, for a total of three weekends. I purchased the reciprocating saw, cordless drill, and circular saw as a set for $300.00 and have certainly used them often since then, so it was a smart purchase. The chainsaw and lopper were used to cut roots that the auger did not cut through. The measuring tape was to ensure that the holes were each two feet deep and 8 feet apart. The level was used to ensure that the posts were being planted straight and the panels level. It is important to get a 3 foot or longer level, since the shorter levels are not as accurate and are really only for things like hanging pictures. I also paid my brother $500.00 for helping me.

The final price tag: $3500.00.

Now, I was a liberal arts major and didn't take math in college, but I am fairly positive that $3500.00 < $10,000.00 and pretty close to 1/3 of $10,000. In fact, if my calculator is to be trusted, it is 35% of the original estimate.

If you are willing to get really dirty, really tired, really achy shoulders, are mechanically inclined enough to start a lawnmower, and don't squeal and act like a ninny when presented with power tools, you can put up a fence. Stay tuned, and I'll tell you exactly how in the next few blogs....