Paying for a Fence

When you're a new homeowner, you end up thinking about things that never really had any place in your thoughts before. Recently, I've been thinking a lot about fences.

The fence in question.

Sure, fences were on my radar in 2016 as the close cousins of walls - who wasn't thinking about them then? Really, the "wall" in the news at that time was pretty much just an expensive fence, based on the pictures I've seen (and the fact that the semantics here are murky). It's a lot like one of my favorite reddit debates: What is a sandwich? But fences dropped off my radar precipitously, perhaps because my mind was at ease that I wouldn't be paying for that (in)famous fence.

The Sandwich Alignment Chart

But now I actually own some fences, and yes, I had to pay for them. And the real pity is that they didn't look that great. They were rusty, falling apart, and had lots of gaps in the bottom. Squirrels were sharpening their teeth on them (yes, that's a thing). The neighbor's kids had jumped over them for years, bending the posts. And if I'm to have something on my property meant to keep something in or out, it had better look half decent in doing so, dang it.

My wife and I have been thinking about getting a dog, so the fence was more than just an eyesore - if we are actually serious about that, then we can't have a flimsy fence through which a furry friend could flee. So, I set to work on addressing a number of shortcomings in the fence over the course of a week. I replaced all the ties that bind the netting to the posts (those are squirrel delicacies, apparently). Then, I put stakes into the ground to secure the bottom to the earth. I installed dummy posts to block gaps at the edge of the fence beside the house. And I even installed tension wire on some portions that weren't held overly tightly, to reduce the chance of being pushed outward.

The biggest project was rectifying the gap under the gate that gives access to the back yard. Homes are generally built on land that had been "graded", which basically means that it has a slope so that water will run away from the house. Because the fence was installed along the grade, the gate was close to the ground on one end, and about 5 inches off the ground on the other. This is plenty of room for a curious pup to slip through, and so it had to be leveled.

Now, I've dug holes before (literally and figuratively), but this one proved to be relatively technically challenging, as it required digging a precise, deep, and level hole in the ground (Fig 1. ). Next, I had to make sure to cut the underlying 4x4 I placed in the ground as support to the correct length with a mitre saw (Fig. 2). I then leveled a layer of sand over gravel upon which to place the wood (if you just use dirt, erosion is more likely to come into play) and added a thin layer of fill dirt all around. Then, another layer of gravel and sand, making sure to level again. On top of this went a layer of brick, so as to create a firm and attractive "threshold" for the gate (Fig. 3). (The amount of time I've spent thinking about thresholds as a homeowner is soon to surpass that of when I worked in research laboratories thinking about detection thresholds for molecular biology assays.) Then, in-between the bricks went more gravel and sand. All of it had to be done to account for the vertical space of each layer, so as to get to the appropriate goal height at the end.

Fig. 1. Digging a hole in the ground. Dirt and grass were removed from a patch of land 6 inches wide by 40 inches long. Removed debris was stored for 20 hours on a blue tarp at a range of 30-35°C, being careful to protect from condensation by covering. Process conducted using Bully Tools standard and flat-headed shovels and a submarine level.

Fig. 2. Putting a piece of wood in a hole in the ground. Foundation was established with a 1 inch layer of crushed rock (common name: gravel) and a 0.5 inch layer of paver sand. 4x4" ground contact-rated lumber was cut to 36 inch length with a DeWalt double-bevel miter saw and laid into the hole. Approximately 1 cubic foot of dirt incubated overnight at 30-35°C was deposited into the gaps surrounding the wood to firm the structure.

Fig. 3. Laying bricks into the hole in the ground. Foundation was established with a 1 inch layer of crushed rock (common name: gravel) and a 0.5 inch layer of paver sand. Bricks of the common clay variety were acquired from a local home improvement supplier, matched carefully for color, grit, and integrity of the operational face. Approximately 0.5 cubic foot of gravel and sand mix was deposited into the gaps surrounding the bricks to firm the structure.

The finished product turned out great, and was complemented by some painting of the fence around it, as well as building some short brick walls on each side and adding some tension wire (Fig. 4). Is it perfect? No. But I spent little money on it, it looks much better, and it has functionality. I think the squirrels will agree that this was a nice little project into which to sink my teeth.

Fig. 4. Confirmatory tests of the utility of the completed gate foundation apparatus. Gate was swung in and out to confirm that no catches on the foundation apparatus were observed. Three independent replicates were conducted, exhibiting no occlusion of the opening nor the function of the gate. Methods for the concomitant improvements to the appearance and integrity of surrounding fence elements depicted in the figure are beyond the scope of this work.