I don't think I know what welded wire is, I do have some experience with chain
link though.
If you are sinking your posts more than about a foot you would be well advised
to have the utilities checked. Usually the gas, water and electricity, phone
and cable will make a pretty straight line from the street or lane to the
meters or house locations but you cannot be certain. When I lived in Chatham
the telephone people came with one of those earth cutting chainsaw like devices
and cut a line along the side of my house and across the back yard diagonally
to supply a neighbour who's house backed onto one corner of my property. I
never would have guessed there would have been a line there, I don't know how
deep it went.
Up here they don't charge to mark out the utilities, they spray paint to show
where the utilities lay.
My fence is a 6 foot one but the posts aren't a lot taller. I bored 4 foot
holes and filled them with cement and embedded the posts into them. It is about
18 years and the fence stands straight still. At the same time my neighbour had
one installed, they dug the holes with a power auger, set in wood 4 by 4 posts.
It has been leaning for several years now and was pulled down this spring. We
have to worry about frost getting down and shifting things up here though.
A lot of people now are driving those stakes into the ground with the steel
frames to grab wood posts and they work well enough but they do move. One
neighbour behind me had a couple of sections of his pushed down by a drunk one
night a couple of years ago the stakes broke off or bent but they were fairly
easily replaced and the fence again erected.
I don't know of any really good way of sinking steel posts reliably into the
ground and keeping them even height without mounting them into something like
cement. you would need to get them pretty deep I would think if they are to
remain secure.
What I did was to drive stakes into the ground at the corners then loop a good
strong string, masonry string is excellent for the purpose around the posts so
that there are two parallel strings between which I could mark and dig my
holes. This also allowed me to determine the height since the ground isn't nice
and level but you probably want the top of the fence to be level for
appearance. You can then decide on height and I marked each steel post with
tape at the desired height so I would know exactly how deep to sink them.
Hope this gives you some useful ideas.
Dale Leavens.
----- Original Message -----
From: Kevin Doucet
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 4:25 PM
Subject: [BlindHandyMan] advice putting up a fence
Hi group,
I am looking in to getting a dog. This dog will be for in doors but I
want a fenced area for the pet to run and for us to play out in the
air. I have an area walled up on two sides, one side the house brick
wall and the other side a wood wall of a room addition. I am thinking
about having the gate on the wooden wall running along the same plane
as the wall, then running the fence at a ninety degree angle to the
gate, perpendicular to the brick wall and joining an end fence
running perpendicular to the wood wall of the room addition and
boxing off the end joining the brick wall to the other ninety degree fence.
This will give about a 25 by 50 foot area. As this will not be a
big dog, not more than about 30 LBS. this should be enough area,
don't you agree?
I looked at some mettle fencing, I think it was called welded wire,
which looks like it would do the job nicely. Also looked at some
mettle fence posts and some wire clamps to attach the fence to the
posts. I also have an idea of what to get for the gate and it's fasteners.
Now, my concerns are what is involved in putting up the fence? Do I
need to have the ground checked by some one to see about water or
electrical lines I may puncture with the posts? What tools will I
need and what methods do I need to familiarize my self with before
starting this project?
Thanks for any help you can give.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
