Fencing and wall building

Hi,

Ive just purchased a house, it has beautiful landscaped gardens nearing half acre. Problem is, I need to/want to enclose it on 3 sides. It is surrounded by trees on one side, which proves difficult to fence it unless they are cut back.

I had 2 people out today to give me quotes, they wouldnt really listen to me - all I want is something light for privacy and to keep my dogs in, I want closed picket fencing with timber posts. However, they kept talking about concrete posts with panels which adds on a lot of extra costs - they were quoting approx €6,000.

The house is in Cork - does anyone here know anyone who can erect the kind of fencing im talking about. I know its not the strongest and wont last as long as the concrete, but budget is a huge factor here. Another problem is on one side we have a very very low wall which is esentially useless - I had envisioned putting some wooden panels on top of the wall, or some railing, but both people who quoted me today said that this would not be possible and that i would be better off knocking the wall and just fencing it.

I know nothing about construction - but could I just build a wall around the whole site? Would this be cheaper?

Heres a link to the type of fencing I mean
http://www.timberfencinggates.ie/fencing/closed.htm

Any help apreciated - I would be able to afford in the region of €3000 - €4000.

You don't mention the length of fence/wall that you want, but I would lay long odds that the cost of a wall would outstrip that of fencing.

One thing to be aware of, if you are looking at 6 ft fence panels, is that in a strong wind they will act like a sail and could take a timber post out of the ground - this of course depends on how sheltered your garden is.

So far as putting wooden panels on top of your existing low wall, you need to think how you will attach them - the "sail" effect will also work on this wall and could wreck it.

Other than doing the job yourself, or enlisting family and/or friends with promises of food and strong drink, I don't think you will find a cheap option that will be durable.

88 meters of picket fencing altogether is what id need. The garden is very sheltered from the trees.

I could build a wall for one section of this which would be 24 meters...i.e. demolish the ridiculous low wall that I cant put panels on and build this in its place.

But ive no idea how much it costs to build a wall....

I built a 1.8m high wall recently capped joints raked out, 4" block on the flat, did the foundation myself, total cost about €90 per metre. Very solid wall, could be done a little cheaper with 9" cavity blocks but the brickies charge you more for laying them (swings and roundabouts).

Also toped a low wall (900mm) with a 1200 mm high fence panel. (picture to follow) Nice job, panels are bolted to the wall, ain't going to move as long as you don't have too long a run, on exposed site would have done it hit and miss with the panels on either side of the wall.

Coincidently the larger wall was to replace a 1.6m high closed picket fence (I actually left about a 3-5 mm gap between boards) I had put up myself using 5x1 treated timber on 4x3 posts. It cost me about 1000 euro in timber to make them, 150 for the mini digger, ? for nails and nail gun and about a weeks work in all. In hindsight I could have bought the panels for the same money but just couldn’t find anybody selling them nearby. Original fence [broken link removed]

David....I like your pic of fence. Want to build mine for me?! I really have no idea where to start cause of this bloody wall.

Found one of the fence and wall.
[broken link removed]
Post bolted through wall. You could use rawl fixings that expand in a hole in the block but there is not much to work with on a 4" block on its side.

Fence is nice and steady and relatively easy to erect. If you had an exposed site where the wind might catch the frence you could mount them in a hit and miss fashion ie one to the front face of wall, wall on back face etc etc. This would allow the wind to pass between them.

Hi Bambo,

Running the search option in this forum gives these previous threads which might give some advice especially this one.

You may find plenty also on building walls under the search option also.

Davidoco seems to have given excellent advice and the hardest part of the job will probably be getting someone to do the work. Best of luck with it.