Fencing & Gates

Fences fail in one place

Walk past any tired fence and look at the bottom of the posts. That is where it went. Not the panels, not the fixings. The few inches of post at ground level where wet soil meets timber.

Everything above can be in perfect condition and the fence still leans, because the only part carrying real load has softened.

A fence is mostly a groundwork job. What you see is panels. What you are paying for is what holds them up.

Set to drain, not set in a bucket

A timber post concreted in with a flat collar of concrete around the top is sitting in a bucket. Rain runs down the post, collects where timber meets concrete, and has nowhere to go. The post rots outward from that line.

Set properly there is drainage beneath the post so water can escape, and the concrete at the top is finished sloping away from the timber so rain sheds instead of pooling.

It takes a few extra minutes per post and it adds years.

Concrete posts sidestep the problem entirely, at some cost to how the fence looks. Timber posts look better and have to be done properly. We will tell you which we would use on your fence and why.

Pressure treated, not dipped

A fence is a sail

This matters more here than in most of the country. We get weather off the moor and off the Atlantic, and a tall close board fence presents a flat face to all of it.

Wind does not go round a solid fence. It goes over, and it pushes hard on the way.

That is why the fences that come down in a gale are almost always the tall solid ones, and why they usually come down as a whole run rather than a panel.

Slatted and hit and miss fencing lets air through. It costs more per metre and it stays up. On an exposed boundary it is not a style choice, it is the reason the fence is still there next winter.

Keeping the panel off the ground

A gravel board is a sacrificial strip along the bottom of the fence, sitting between the panel and the wet ground.

The point is that rot attacks the board instead of the panel. A board is cheap and takes minutes to swap. A panel is neither. Concrete gravel boards take it further and do not rot at all.

It is a small detail that decides whether you are replacing a strip in ten years or the whole fence.

Gates are heavier than they look

A gate hangs. Every part of it is under load all day from two or three hinges, and every time someone leans on it or the wind catches it, that load goes into the post.

So gate posts are a different job to fence posts. Bigger section, set deeper, more concrete.

A gate post that shifts half an inch is a gate that drags on the ground, then catches, then eventually will not close.

Field gates, side gates, driveway gates and matching gates built into a run of fencing.

Height and boundaries

Two things worth knowing before you plan anything.

Height. Two metres is generally the limit without planning permission, dropping to one metre where the fence runs alongside a road or footpath. Individual properties can have restrictions, so we check yours before work starts.

Ownership. It is worth checking your deeds before replacing a boundary fence, because it may not be yours to replace.

Neighbours tend to take it better when they are asked first, and it costs nothing to look.

No price list, and here is why

Fencing prices turn on things you cannot see from a photograph. What the ground is like where the posts go.

Whether there is an old fence and old concrete to dig out. How exposed the boundary is, and whether that changes what should go up.

So we come and look, at no charge and with no obligation. You get a written quote with the work set out and a price that does not move.