r/fence

House is being built on the lot next to mine. Builder wants me take my fence out so he can grade between our properties and then I can put it back up. Fence would be my expense and about $3k from the original company that put it up. Came home from work today and he essentially built a wall of dirt to “show me what it will look like if I don’t take the fence down.” I’m in central VA and in a HOA. I was almost going to agree until he pulled this nonsense so now I’m having second thoughts. Any thoughts on this? He also told me I should put a retaining wall up by my driveway which I said no to. I’m in the middle of a hardscape and pool being put in my backyard. By doing this they already messed up one section of fence. My son is about 46” tall for comparison. New build to the right.

*Since this has completely blown up way more than I ever expected I wanted to give an update. HOA doesn’t really seem to care besides asking if the builder offered to pay for fence removal, that is a clear no. County contacted me and I spoke to them this morning. Sent a follow up email and will call them lunch time tomorrow if I have not heard back. However, I have ceased any and all communication with the builder and have a consultation with an attorney tomorrow mid afternoon.

I appreciate all the feedback and will keep everyone updated as things move forward.

Pre stained cedar with expert stain and seal redwood color. Black galvanized 1x1 mesh was trenched 1’ for extra critter prevention. Pretty sweet outcome for this one.

Fencing to appreciate the trees on the property line? But also, why is one mostly gone?

Empty lot next to a very much filled lot… so many questions I honestly don’t know where to start.

First off yes I’m aware about the gaps, I’m going to fix that once I figure out this mess.

I bought this gate kit, it works really well, except how the hinges work. If I want the gate to open out (which I would prefer) the panels get in the way, so I’d have to mount it outside on the panel. Which would in turn make the gate stick out slightly.

The alternative is to mount it inside post and have the gate swing in, but then the gate would be significantly inset along the fence.

I’m at a loss with what to do with this, besides try to return it and make it myself, or just live with it.

Any advice?

You can see in the last pic how the metal posts flare out which makes the nailers not flush with each other. Is this just how it works or am I doing something wrong?

I plan on adding some supports across the top to straight the top row of pickets and also give the mid-span nailer strip something else to bite onto. But having never done a fence, is this just a “feature” of 5/8” pickets in a horizontal layout?

Tbf it looks fine from basically all angles unless you’re staring down the barrel of the fence as my pics show.

We recently had a 214ft premium western cedar staggered (board on board) fence installed for 15k.
This included removal of old fence, footers, etc. This price was to also include premium hardware and galvanized 3 inch outdoor screws to hold the rails.

This install was supposed to take under a week, we are now going on month 3 with this company. They have finally said they are finished and I am questioning if this work would be considered acceptable.

Pic 1 was the 1st gate latch that they installed & had to cut to make the latch not hit the house. We were told that is standard practice. We made them replace this.

Pic 2 is their replacement, we believe the pin keeps falling out because they reused the previous gate latch hole and now it is too big, resulting in the pin latch issue. This was their solution which now results in the gate not shutting correctly.

Pic 3 is part of the gate support..to my uneducated eye, this damage shouldn’t have been allowed on a new install

Pic 4 is the gate now scrapes the top of the frame after they reworked it

Pic 5 there are several of this holes/knots throughout the fence. I know some is standard but is this acceptable for premium cedar?

Pic 6 thru out the entire fence there are several panels where the board on board do not overlap (I thought the standard was 1 inch - 1 1/2 inch overlap). Some of the panels have pickets that are barely even touching much less overlapping. This is resulting in gaps between the boards which imo defeats the purpose of a board on board privacy fence

Pic 7 they used staples thru out the entire fence to try and hide the gaps & boards which are warping which have now resulted in these stains from the staple reacting with the cedar. While we had thought the stainless steel screws were being used to attach the pickets

Pic 8 more imo damaged boards that they installed

We have gladly paid for items we assumed were included but supposedly weren’t (exterior top & bottom rails, fence post cap, etc.)

I am looking for any input on whether these are valid issues that should be remedied.

Thank you