Fence - this is the end (?)

It took one more solid weekend's effort, and a bit besides, but the last bit of the fence is in. With the season getting late, it was impossible to get any work done in the evenings after work. It's just as well - the next step was to lift and screw the panels into place. At 6' tall and 8' long, the panels are rather heavy and unwieldy; this is not a job for one person. Luckily, Da just happened to be in town a few weeks back.

 

With two people, hanging the panels is actually a very quick process. We had all eight panels up in an hour or two.
 

Next came the rather more time-consuming trim work used to cover up the steel posts.
 

This heap used to be a brush pile put in place by the previous owners. There is another massive pile where I had the stump ground out. Disposing of both piles and rehabilitating the lawn will be next summer's undertaking, I guess.
 

I put in a pair of stainless steel eyebolts to anchor the clothesline. I used a stepped drill to cut the 3/8" diameter hole through the steel post.
 

The view from the neighbor's side. We'll see if the terrible creepers come back next year. There's already some new shoots coming up. But, for now at least, it's out of sight and mind. I'll declare this job done. Hopefully, as was my plan all along, I'll not have to think about it at all for the next decade or two.

Fencing, round 4

The back yard is not a quadrilateral, but it is enclosed by four stretches of fencing. Section 1 was completed in 2012; sections 2 and 3 last summer. This left the fourth and final segment as a job for this summer. I got to starting it in earnest on Labor Day weekend, which I maintain (by several definitions) counts as summer.

Part of the reason it didn't get done sooner was that, unlike the other sections, this one required some more extensive preparation. This section forms the border between our yard and the back-yard neighbors. Some may recall that there once stood a 100-year old maple tree along that fenceline. (We still miss the shade.) The stump that remained, a good four feet across, would have to be taken out before attempting to replace the fence behind it.

This is not an easy job. Simple, maybe, but not easy. Some folks would go the DIY route and rent a stump grinder for the weekend. What's available locally, however, would be woefully inadequate for the task at hand. I could easily spent an entire weekend out there sweating, cursing, and numbing my arms doing battle against that venerable old with a puny machine. When my neighbor across the street had a stump ground out earlier this summer, I got to see a REAL machine: a trailer with a 50-hp engine spinning a 2-foot cutting head at a few hundred RPM! Hydraulics pivot the cutter up/down, left/right, and jack the whole trailer forward/back. The pickup truck serves as the anchor. Now THAT was what I needed!

Only problem: there was no direct way to get that machine to my stump - way in the back of the yard, far from the road and driveway. The grinder guy took a look at the job and the potential approaches, and concluded that he might be able to back it all the way up the driveway and into the yard. However, in order to round the turn into the yard, I would have to dismantle section 2 of the fence, that'd I'd put in last summer. Not just remove the pence panels, but pull up at least one of the fence posts. Those posts are sunk 42" into the ground, and are surrounded by concrete for more than 2' of that depth. I put those posts in with the specific intention of never having to deal with them again.

The solution, ultimately, was to come in from the other side of the fence - from the neighbor's parking lot. This was the approach used to take the tree out in the first place. However, it would entail removing not only the old fencing on my side, by also peeling back a large section of chain-link fencing on the neighbor's side. Asking for permission for these things (moving the chain link and bringing in the stump grinder) developed enough inertia that it was almost September before I finally got off my ass and did something about it. Permission granted. Let's get to work.

Thankfully, I had some help. My folks were in town for the long weekend, and we spent a lot of that time out in the yard.

First step - pull out the old, rotten, listing, failing, punky, craptastic fence.
 

Most of the old posts were rotted out at grade level. One of them actually took some effort to pull.
 

Next order of business - hacking back the obnoxious vines and creepers that infest the chain-link fence (and lean heavily on my side). This stuff was persistent and pernicious - the roots spread in a crazy network just an inch or two below the ground. In the month since we cut it back, new sprouts are turning up everywhere.
 

It took Da and I the better part of a full day to cut it all back. It made for quite a change in the view!
 

We ended up with 15 yard waste bags filled to cut vegetation. Good riddance.
 

The next day we dismantled a portion of the chain-link.
 

This particular chain-link post got gonzo'ed by the gradual, inexorable encroachment of the tree. Given enough time, nature wins.
 

Make way for the stump grinder!
 

Is this the hottest thing or what?
 

Everyone together, now: grunt grunt grunt. I did get video of this part, but haven't edited it into suitable shape yet. It's pretty thrilling to see in person.
 

This was just the first pass. Ultimately he would go down 6-12" below grade over an 8' x 8' area, leaving a thick trail of wood mulch and dirt behind.
 

He did snag a bit of old, flat, steel wire along the way, and got several yards of it wound around the axle.
 

Said wire, all bundled up. Goodness only knows what it was doing in the ground, how long it had been there, and what its original purpose was.
 
Even counting the 20 minutes spent prying and pulling it back out, the grinder was in and out in about an hour, and the price was impressively low. Best money I ever spent avoiding a DIY job!
 

After he left, Da and I spent some time with the shovel and rakes to bring all that mulch back to my side of the fence, where it made an impressive 5' pile. It was dusty, dirty work.
 
It took a few weeks for the fencing materials to arrive, then a bit longer until I had a free weekend to get to work on it. I could tell harrowing tales of working the post-hole digger, past roots and rocks, mixing a few hundred pounds of concrete by hand, but I'll (mostly) skip it - you've read it before.

I will, however, tell a bit about the very...last...hole. This one ended up just about next to where the old tree used to be. The stump grinder did go down below grade a bit, but not the four feet or so I needed to dig. I let out a great heavy sigh when I jabbed the post-hole digger in and heard thunk! It was not just the sound of hitting another root; this was, in fact, me hitting a solid deck of maple. A single root can be excavated around and sawed out - but how does an average Joe bore through some unknown thickness of solid (and green) hardwood?
 
Over the next hours of hard labor, I had plenty of time to think it over. I started with a beefy power drill and a 1-1/2" spade bit, figuring I could drill out some and break up the rest. That was a decent start, but the shank on the bit was only about 6" long. I thought about getting a set of hole saws, and maybe a long extender bit. But hole saws only cut a few inches deep, too. What I really needed was to get a 5-foot length of 8" diameter cast iron pipe, grind some teeth into it, and attach that to my neighbor's two-man auger. Work that puppy all the way down and pull out one solid core. Yup, that'd about do it.

Dynamite was also considered.

But, lacking dynamite or long lengths of pipe, I had to settle for this:

My neighbor uses this chisel-tipped pry bar for chipping into ice while fishing. I broke out the file and gave it as sharp an edge as I could. Many hours of thrusting, chopping, chipping, stabbing, prying, wiggling, digging, scooping, and cursing followed.
 

Here are some of the chunks I hacked out. Some of the work went easily - there were sections with punky wood that crumbled easily. Mostly, however, it was like chopping an axe into green end-grain. If you don't get a clean split on the first whack, the axe head gets pinched in the wood, necessitating a lot of prying and wiggling to get it loose. Somehow, I managed to not pull the bar into my face in all that time.
 

That wood went down seemingly forever! I only used the post-hole digger for the final 12 inches or so.
 

 

 

Like I said, it took about six hours just to sink this one final hole. A week later, my left wrist is still complaining bitterly.
 
On the bright side, however, that is now in the past. All the posts are in place and set in concrete. I hope mightily to not need to do anything with those posts. Ever. Again.

The panels will go up in the next weekend or two (lack of daylight after work makes it tough get anything done during the week).

Fencing, Round Three

The summer is getting on, and before the snow starts flying I have more fence work to do. This time it's the long stretch between me and my neighbor. Like all the rest, it is in sad shape. Observe this lovely lean it has developed:

And yes, that's a broken-down triangle tower that is being used to help brace it. My neighbor provided some impetus to not let this job lapse into next year by pointing out that the fence is unlikely to withstand a broadside from a snowblower. Fair point.

In some ways this section is more straightforward than others I have done. This section has no gate, and the starting and ending points are not constrained by large immobile objects like the foundation of my house. Nope, it is just one eight-foot long section after another. Unfortunately, it's a whole bunch of sections, about 80 feet all told, which means a whole bunch of posts and trim work. Half of the fence is nice, manageable 4' tall spaced picket. The back sections, however, are 6' tall privacy, which are really heavy and unwieldy. All in all, a large (and expensive) job. The joy of home ownership!

Like a fool I decided to do the installation myself, as I did with the others. The reasoning for this is simple: the fencing system I am using - with metal channels supporting wood panels - is uncommon enough that no one around here works with it regularly, and I would rather not have this job be their proving ground. Plus the cost of installation (I could not actually ever get a firm quote - based on the unfamiliarity) was frightful.

If the job were left to just evenings after work and the occasional Saturday, it probably would never get finished. So I decided to make a concerted attack on it and see how far I could get. Last weekend I picked up most of the materials from my supplier. This week I took Friday off and got to work. As Brynna was heading off to school I was pulling out some rotting posts.

The locations of the new posts did not line up with the old posts, meaning that each hole was started from scratch. My progress was hampered several times when, 6-12" down, I would thump into roots.

Goodness only knows where they came from. They aren't close to any substantial plant. I suppose it is possible they belong to the old maple tree, tens of feet away. As I dug holes closer to the stump, the roots became more frequent and thicker.

By the end of my first work day, Friday, I had put in almost ten hours and managed to set just four posts - less than halfway. I was beat from post-hole digging, hauling dirt, and mixing and schlepping concrete. Still, it was a start.

Saturday morning my neighbor picked me up with his pickup and trailer, and we went to pick up the materials I hadn't picked up already. These were the 6' fence panels, four of them, which I could not readily load onto the top of Hilary's station wagon last weekend. I next hung the 4' tall panels. The first one cornered to the first set of fence I installed last summer.

Late in the day, after sinking another post, I installed a "sloped" panel to transition from the 4' fence to the 6'. The first post of the 6' section I doubled up the post to create a box beam. This is not, according to the manufacturer's installation guidelines, strictly necessary. But I'm an engineer and wanted some additional rigidity.

By this point it was about 4:30. I had designs on going further and sinking another post before calling it quits, but figured that my efforts would be better spent making dinner. Here's the extent of my progress at the end of the second day:

Nice to see that I can hew to a straight line!

Day three, Sunday, I woke up pretty sore, but still determined to keep at it. My progress slowed right down when my post hole digger thumped into a tight clump of tree roots the size of my forearm. It took until lunchtime to clear that and dig the first hole of the day.

I managed a second post in the afternoon before packing it in. I could perhaps have soldiered on, but I was beat. The next hole would have brought my closer to the tree stump, meaning a high likelihood of encountering more tenacious roots to saw through. Plus, I was out of concrete. The 6' panels are too heavy to maneuver into place single-handed, so I called it quits for the day. Instead, I did something nice and relaxing, like washing and hanging the laundry. Then I went grocery shopping, followed by a swing past the hardware store for a few more bags of concrete (80 lbs each) and gravel (50 lbs each).

So three full days of work, and about 3/4 of the fence installed. Not bad, I suppose, but I'd hoped for more. Of course, once the fence itself is installed, there will come a long period of trim work to cover over the metal posts. It'll look great when it's finished, but there's a lot of work still to come.

More of Fencing: Season Two

I took advantage of the nice weather and long weekend to finish the section of fence from the house to the garage. Prior to this weekend I had gotten the posts set into place, so now all that was left was to put the wood in place. I say that as though it was just a trifle of work. After all, the panels and the gate were already assembled and cut to length - how much more work could it be? A surprisingly large amount, as I discovered last year. I estimate I spent about 5 hours each on Sunday and Monday. The results are nice, but to do it properly is painstaking work - a task somewhere between rough framing and finish carpentry.

I mentioned that I had the panels made by a local company. However, unlike last year, they used the semi-decorative rails that aren't strictly rectangular in cross section, but rather have one convex face. They still attached to the metal posts alright, and would eventually be covered with facia boards. Still, it was, like the 7' posts that were actually 8', a vexing detail.

Another vexing detail: like I discovered with last year's fence, the large granite blocks that make up the foundation below grade step outward from the house the further down you go. So, instead of having this terminal post close up against the side of the house, it was a foot away. I would need to take this panel and split off a bit to mount on the other side, to close off the gap to the house.

One nice thing about white cedar: it is fantastically easy to make a quick, clean cut with hand tools.

I pulled the 4"-wide picket off the rails and replaced it with a 6" to close the gap to the house

That's starting to look like a fence. Except for that big hole in the middle. That's for the gate.

You can see here the gate installation in-progress. The gate post on the right, which is two of the metal posts back-to-back, has been fleshed out a bit more with 2"x2" segments, capped with 1"x5" boards and a whole bunch of screws holding the pieces tight to one another. This gives the post a bit more meat for attaching the gate hinge, and makes it look a lot more attractive than the bare metal.

Single-handedly getting the 40-lb gate up to just the right height, and level, and holding it in place while I attach the hinges to it and the gate post is no small feat. I managed it though, and it swings as smooth and easily as one could hope for. Unlike its predecessor, which dragged its way inwards across the grass, this one is set to swing outwards, and has a few inches of clearance above the pavement below. It won't do anything to stop cats from coming and going, but should be plenty against a wily, fuzzy black dog.

The facia wood for post opposite the gate came next, along with the gate latch. Some more cutting and screwing of facia boards, and I was ready to declare it done.

Looks pretty good from the outside, too.

So that's two of four fence sections in the back yard taken care of. The other two, which go along the property line, will be larger endeavors. For one, there's just a lot more footage to deal with. For another, it'll be 6' privacy fencing, which means taller posts (probably not set deeper, though) and much heavier panels - probably a two-person job. On the other hand, there won't be any gates to worry about, so locating the posts can be a bit more relaxed. Let's hope I can work up the courage to take it on soon.

Fencing: season two

Fencing: season two is not the latest hit TV program. And despite its physical toll, it is not the latest fitness craze. Nope, it's just me, my post hole digger, and another section of the backyard fence that needs replacing. In truth, it all needs replacing, except the part that I replaced last summer, but I can only do so much at once.

This new section is a project about the same size and difficulty as last year's. It runs from the house to the garage, about 20' long, with a gate in the middle. Break out the post hole digger!





Like I said about the fencing I replaced last year: it might have looked good for the first few days after it was installed ~10 years ago. But it was cheap crap then, and it sure didn't last. Looks like the posts were only sunk about two feet into the ground. These had rotted all away; I pulled them easily with my own two hands. The pickets themselves were in close contact to the ground and had likewise rotted away. The gate could not be opened more than halfway, and then only by lifting and dragging it.



I am replacing them with steel posts, partially set in concrete, that are rated for 20 years. The wood that's attached to them may not last that long, but will be trivial to replace. For this 4' fence, only about 3-1/2' of post needs to be above grade. Last year I had used 7' steel posts and sunk about half into the ground. I ordered 7' posts again this year. My distributor ordered 7' posts. Master Halco sent 8' posts. Above, you can see one leftover post from last year's project set atop one from the order I received.

A part of me wouldn't mind so much: I got more product for the same cost. But sinking nearly 5' of steel into the ground for a light perimeter seems downright silly. What is more, I simply can't dig a hole that deep with my post hole diggers, nor would I want to even if I could.



Solution? Hack away. With the combination of dremel and hacksaw (which is missing about 1/3 of its teeth now), it's only a 5-10 minute job per post. A part of me was tempted to take them into work: the stockroom for our machine shop has a mighty nice metal cutting band saw that would have made quick work of these.

Fence - Nearly Complete?

A few weeks back I finally got around to installing the gate. It took me a while to get around to it after putting in the rest of the fence. In the meantime it had just been gently leaned between the fence posts. This was sufficient to keep Jasper from escaping, but also greatly reduced the urgency to get the project finished. There were two other hiccups in the way: 1) the fencing distributor had given me a crap set of hinges not suited to this application, and 2) neither had they provided me with the proper cladding/trim pieces that need to be installed before the gate hardware.
 
I got around to it eventually, though, and am rather pleased with the results.

 

Plumb and level, with a nice uniform gap
 

The bottom corner of the open edge bulges out about an inch. This is not my fault. The posts on either side are plumb and parallel; it is the gate panel itself that is not flat.
 

 

It may not be obvious without close examination, but I needed to take a hand saw to the gate when I installed it. The fence rails are 2x3s, but the gate panel was assembled using 3x3s. This means that, when I installed the hinge and got the pickets all in the same plane, the rails of the gate panel were an inch (well, 3/4") too thick. So here, where the gate mates to the open side post, I notched the gate panel rails. This has the handy side benefit of keeping the gate from swinging too far closed.
 
As I said, the fencing distributor didn't really give me the right trim pieces for covering up the metal fence posts. While the flange of the metal post can be covered with a 1x4, it really ought to be done with a 1x6. I haven't gotten around to picking those materials up yet. Better hurry I suppose, or it'll be winter before I get around to it.