Wind happens, let’s build a fence: Demo, planning, and layout

In the middle of remodeling my bathroom, I’ve already had a lot of the unexpected occur. On top of the surprises a remodel brings, we have all been dealing with our lives changing due to the virus, and now I have a new one. We had a windstorm and our fence blew over. So it is time to take a break from the bathroom, yet again, and learn how to build a fence, starting with fence planning and layout. I have no experience building fences so, just like my bathroom remodel adventure, I will be teaching myself. In this post, I am really hoping to answer two key questions: 1: How do you plan and design your fence?, and 2: Does building a fence really suck as much as people say it does? Let’s find out.

Fence Demo

As you can see, the fence was really old and brittle. The fence posts just snapped and that was that. The first thing I had to do was get rid of the old fence. Because I have kids and a dog and no immediate way of getting rid of the wood, I had to take the fence apart board by board, making sure to remove any screws and nails for safety reasons.

This was simple enough. Just a lot of hammering, unscrewing and prying. I am getting really good at demo. As with any project I have undertaken, now it was time to figure out what the hell I needed to do.

Fence design

There are a million different ways to design and build a fence. I wanted to make it look like our other fence, so this part was relatively easy. If you are looking to design your own fence, there are a number of online tools and software available to take the headache out of the process as this website so finely details.

Here is what I am going for…

Planning

I had a little over 25 feet of fence to replace. Additionally, I needed a gate somewhere… anywhere really. I’m not going to be picky at this point.

After reading a million “how-to build a fence” articles, I had to figure out the following:

• how many posts I would need
• how far apart are the posts?
• The size and spacing between the panels
• how big do I want the gate
• why am I doing this again?

To figure out how much I would need, I used an online calculator. I just entered in the specifics of my fence, and it calculates the number and type of boards I would need as well as other materials that are detailed below.

Fence materials

After extensively souring the web I found I needed the following materials:

• Fence posts= 4×4 pressure treated wood
• Panel= 5 1/2″ x 8′
• Fence rails= 2×4 pressure treated wood
• post hole digger and spade shovel for digging the holes
• gravel for the base of the hole
• wooden stakes for leveling and setting posts inline
• rope for the same reason
• post hole concrete to set the posts
• Fence rail brackets to attach the rails to the posts
• flexseal to seal the wood and protect the post from rotting

Layout of the posts and holes

Figuring out the layout of the fence posts really hurt my brain. So I have to apologize to my high school math teacher for telling him I would not use the material he was teaching in real life. Sorry, Mr. Caputo. You were right, I was wrong.

I won’t bore you with specifics, but after math, math, and more math, I settled on 5 posts at varying distances due to the total length of the fence and the gate. Now about those holes for the posts…

When determining the hole depth, you have to first identify the hight that you want your posts (we settled on 6′). The hole should be 1/3-1/2 the hight of the exposed post. Additionally (damn you math) your holes should be 3 times the width of your posts. Hmmmm… Sorry again Mr. Caputo! If you have a 6-foot fence, you want 2 feet below ground. Also, you need about 4 inches of gravel that the post will rest on. So our holes will be 28″ deep and 12″ in diameter. Ha! In your face 4th-grade math!

It took me a while to figure this out, and maybe it shouldn’t have, but I did all of this during my mommy productive time, so I’ve got to be happy with that. I will leave you with this happy little picture of my kids (and my dog) having some outdoor time while I was working on the fence.