Please fence me in!

chewy14 said :

By law you can only force them to pay half of the cheapest option, which will be a 1.5m paling fence. You can’t force them to pay half of a colorbond fence if they don’t want to.

Zing!

Even then the fences would need to be due for repair. If weezie just wants to put in new fences for the hell of it then he’ll be paying the full whack … if the neighbours agree to having a pig ugly Colorbond fence, that is.

We used Yard to Yard back in December for paling fences and were disappointed. Due to them not following the plan, we nearly lost about 2 square metres to the government. Lucky I came home at lunch before they had erected the fence and made them move the hole for one of the crucial posts back to where it was supposed to be.
They also left several large gaps at the bottom and a heap of mess when trimming the tops.
Whilst not quite dodgy, certainly sloppy.
We then used Gerards Fencing for the pool fence and found them to be extremely prompt, friendly and professional.

BTW if you want to go paling, dulux have a great system to paint it, Cheap and pretty easy with a great finish.

WFIS fencing did a great job on our fence. http://www.wfis.com.au or 0439586063.

weeziepops said :

Okay, an update for interested fellow fencers. I have managed to speak to both LJK Constructions and Steve and John’s Fencing. So far looking at getting LJK in to do the job. Extremely helpful and gave me lots of information and advice. He gave me a quote over the phone, which I like to have, and is coming out to do a site inspection and final quote this weekend.

My next issue is going to be how I convince the neighbours to kick in their share and what recourse I have if they won’t/can’t!

Ask them what colour they would prefer, and then tell them you have chosen the opposite. They may wish to kick in if the fence will be to their liking!

weeziepops said :

My next issue is going to be how I convince the neighbours to kick in their share and what recourse I have if they won’t/can’t!

By law you can only force them to pay half of the cheapest option, which will be a 1.5m paling fence. You can’t force them to pay half of a colorbond fence if they don’t want to.
I highly recommend getting your neighbours on side before you start doing anything like this.
Neighbourly disputes can be great fun.

Interestingly, there was a huge kerfuffle in my street recently when a neighbour’s dog broke through the fence and killed (yes, killed) the next door neighbour’s dog.

My next issue is going to be how I convince the neighbours to kick in their share and what recourse I have if they won’t/can’t!

Have you discussed it with them already? My take on fence etiquette is whoever does the ground work (quotes, project management etc.) gets the good side of the fence – although with colour bond it’s pretty much the same both sides.

In terms of payment, I would imagine that a conventional 50/50 split would be the way to go – unless of course your neighbour is the ACT Government in which case you foot the whole lot. It shouldn’t be a matter of convincing them as there is an obligation to meet half the cost – common sense would of course dictate that not everyone’s finances are such that they can wake up in the morning and decide to spend a couple of grand on fencing so some warning and discussion about the issue would probably be a good idea – you could always have chat over the back fence – a great urban tradition.

Weeziepops, are you replacing a paling fence that is rotten and falling down. If so, a great way to get your neighbours to chuck in for a new fence is to borrow/obtain a rather large savage dog.

The sight of my rottweiler was enough to get my neighbour onboard.

Lidos Fencing
Jimmy Lido – 0408 645 832

We ended up having all of our fences done by Jimmy. All the neighbours were happy with the prices. Quick responses from them and fast, prompt workers.

Highly recommended.

Okay, an update for interested fellow fencers. I have managed to speak to both LJK Constructions and Steve and John’s Fencing. So far looking at getting LJK in to do the job. Extremely helpful and gave me lots of information and advice. He gave me a quote over the phone, which I like to have, and is coming out to do a site inspection and final quote this weekend.

My next issue is going to be how I convince the neighbours to kick in their share and what recourse I have if they won’t/can’t!

Tempestas said :

Johnboy, these sort of posts are great, is there any sort of “Tradie recommendation” indexing you could do to make searching easier?

How about paling fences, Colourbond always feels to boxed in for my liking.

Oddly enough we’re working on something like that.

Johnboy, these sort of posts are great, is there any sort of “Tradie recommendation” indexing you could do to make searching easier?

How about paling fences, Colourbond always feels to boxed in for my liking.

Clown Killer said :

I can recommend Yard to Yard Fencing (Scott Easton 0417258785)

I can vouch for this company as well, they did an excellent job for a reasonable price, were reliable and friendly to go with it.

Weeziepops – Thanks for the post! I’m about to replace all of my fences too!!

Rapid Set Cement is not your friend.

But…he touched me in my Special Area!

I second the non-recommendation of Jim’s Fencing – neighbour got his (wooden) fence done by them and it was a shocker – looked like it had been put up by Jose Feliciano. Took months for them to come back and fix it too.

Steve & John’s Fencing
(02) 6238 2284

I can recommend Yard to Yard Fencing (Scott Easton 0417258785)

They did about 80m of 1.8m colourbond fencing and a gate for me in January. Scott took the time to properly understand the detail of the job and exactly what we wanted. He committed to a start date on our acceptance of his quote and his people turned up and did the work as agreed. Small problems were easily fixed and his price was, in my mind reasonable.

When comparing quotes check to see what you’re paying for. Yard to Yard were a little dearer than some of the others but their price included removal of the old fence, clearing and removal of vegetation to accommodate the increased height of the new fence and a quality finish – If you’re on a slope and your new fence comes down the slope in “steps” rather than as a single sweeping line then you know you’ve been ripped off.

Galland Fencing. Good bloke, reliable service, like beer and pays for his shout. The latter should be trumps in anyones language

Be very careful.
A few rules for new fences:
Know what kind of fence you want: colour, type, raked or stepped if you are on a hill
Go and look at prices yourself
The cheapest quote is not always the best.
Make sure the contractor has a list of references of previous work, Go and have a look at it.
Rapid Set Cement is not your friend.

I think you’re in my neighbourhood. In that case, I don’t recommend Jim’s Fencing.

I had Fast Fencing (0410 894 093 – I think the guy’s name is Steve but my memory could be wrong) install my fence last year.

He was the cheapest by far of all the quotes I got, and you can actually see the good job he’s done when you compare my fence to the fences of some of my neighbours, who’ve also recently had fencing work done by other fence people.

I called around a few places and got the best price for 1.8m Colorbond from Mark Read of LJK Constructions (0407 269 765).

Under no circumstances would I recommend approaching hk0reDuck and asking him to erect a fence for you. I hear he has absolutely no experience or credentials and would do a terrible job.