Do it yourself backyard fence installation
Economy is bad these days. Many people try to save money by getting involved in do-it-yourself projects, especially around the house. One project that is tempting to undertake is putting up a fence in your backyard. The material is readily available and the blueprint is not hard to come up with.
A quick trip to your local hardware store like Home Depot or Lowe's can get you everything you need to start the project. The project itself seems pretty easy to do. You know exactly what needs to be done and what type of fencing material is required.
So finally the Saturday that you've been waiting for has arrived. You pick up the paper with the drawings and the list of required material, heading on to the local hardware store. You load up your truck with posts, yards of pre-cut fences, nails and screws. You head back to your property and unload your truck. Half an hour later you have your post locations marked on the ground and ready to start digging. You've predicted to take a few minutes, at most, to dig each hole.As you are digging you come across some tough roots from the surrounding trees that are putting up a tough fight. You consider that as an unusual situation and a bad choice of location to dig. You stop get your saw and start cutting the roots. Three or four minutes later you start digging again. Before you know it, you notice you can't dig any further. There is a big rock in the way. Grudgingly, using a pick you clear around the rock and finally with your shovel you lift the rock out of the hole. By this time you are tired and you've spent three times more than you thought it would take to dig that hole. You measure the depth of the whole and continue digging. After going through a few more episodes of cutting roots and taking rocks out of the hole you're finally satisfied with the depth of the whole. At this time you place the post inside the hole and mark the desired length on the post. You take the post out and you cut it to the length. You feel good about your accomplishment but you start thinking maybe you underestimated the project. You go on to start digging the second hole thinking you'll make up the time on this one. Again after a minute or so digging you come across the dreaded roots from the nearby trees. By now you know the routine, having saw in hand and the pick & shovel close by, you start sawing the tree roots. Shortly after that, as you expected, the pick and shovel come handy in clearing and lifting the big rock that you encounter out of the hole. You continue the process of digging, cutting the roots, clearing around the rock you encounter and taking them out of the hole until you get to the desired depth for the whole. You get the post, set it in the hole, measure the desired length and mark it on the post. Now, you are exhausted, you look at the number of the holes that need to be dug and seriously think you need help. Between the digging, cutting the roots, clearing and lifting the rocks out of the holes you manage to dig a total off five holes in close to two hours.
While you're having lunch you break the news to your wife that you're going to ask Joe, your buddy, to come over and help you finish the project. When your wife reminds you of the last project that Joe helped you to finish, how long it took and how it looked after it was finished you tell your wife what she has been telling you all along and you have been refusing to do, that is, the possibility of hiring a professional fence installer.
You say, “well, we can hire a reputable fence installer from the remodeling flyer that we get every week ". She says "yes I think you should do that instead of calling Joe. Besides I never liked Joe anyway, he is weird". While looking for the flyer, knowing deep down that Joe is weird, you complain to her that she shouldn’t say that about Joe and there is nothing weird about Joe.
You might think this is just a story. I assure you this really happened. I even know the person that this happened to. Okay, I admit it, it happened to me. I consider myself a handyman. I have tackled many projects in my life. But as I found out fencing is not one of those projects that I like to tackle. Too many variables and too much physical work is involved in fence installation.
I ended up calling a company called All Fencing And Repair to finish the job for me.
As it turned out even the five holes that I dug were not any help to them. The dug new holes according to their calculations based on what would support the fence better and how it would look at the end.
I returned what I had bought and chose new fencing material to be supplied by All Fencing And Repair. Vito and his crew did the whole job in one day and they gave me one full year warranty on the job. These guys knew what they were doing. Looking at how they worked you would know they had faced every obstacle possible before. Fixing to underground PVC pipes and cut electrical cables were part of the job for them.
I chose white aluminum fence with latch and lock for the gates. But I had a variety of the choices such as wood, iron and PVC. I’ve recommended them to all my friends and they have already installed fences for two of them.
I also learned a few things along the way.
Don’t cut the post before having it set in concrete in the ground.
Get someone like Joe involved in anything you don’t want to do.
Most importantly, listen to your wife when she tells you to do something. She will never forget that she was right and you were wrong in not listening to her suggestion.
Save money use products that last and have it installed professionally. Call All Fencing and Repair at 954-605-6236
