Privacy fence

[Crizzy]

I was shocked to receive such an expensive quote for privacy vinyl fencing, roughly $18,000 for just the front of my property w/ a gate, that’s just 135 feet of fencing.

Has anyone else chosen to put up solid panel privacy fencing? Is wood more economical? What about sheet metal?

[Kapohocat]

About 18 months ago, we put up 142 LF of vinyl fencing for my mom*. The cost of the fencing ran about $3200 for fencing material. Each post used a bag of quickcrete (every 6' ft). In her case, labor was free (!) although it took us 4 days (2 weekends) - with 3 people. Then they added 12' gate which ran $400 for L&M (and reused the existing hardware for gate with vinyl attached to it).

In my mom's case, the cost of the fencing was roughly 30% more than wood. No painting, staining required though. We figured the installation of vinyl took less time than wood once we got through the fencing learning curve. I think she orginally had quotes from fencing companies at $6000-8000.

Does a fence line through brush have to be cut? Is the ground level or will there bit a lot of leveling of posts beforehand?

* This was in Honomu where there is 10' of soil!

Edited by - kapohocat on 10/21/2006 10:28:47

[lquade]

wow you could get a lava wall for that price or less. we did chain link, painted it black and then bought black tennis court type netting at 80% privacy and that roll was 149$. the neighbors seem to like it, we did all the work. 125 feet was about 600$ i think, including gate with us doing labor, last week i saw at dels some already black painted tight weave horse fencing that was really nice and cheap which i would have used had i seen it, (since we covered it anyway) and would have saved all the painting.

[Crizzy]

Thanks for the info. Privacy is my main concern in building my house. The fenceline is already cleared. I’m still shocked at the quote I got: to fence my lot with solid vinyl fencing at the front of the lot and a hog wire fence around the other three sides came to $26,200!

[Crizzy]

I will check out that horse fencing at Del, thanks! What an innovative idea you had by using tennis netting! I was thinking about using metal sheets for fencing, but I don't want my property to end with a junkyard-style perimeter, LOL.

[toucano]

Crizzy - doing fencing here is not anything like fencing back on the mainland. Unless you are really the exception, every hole is going to be in lava. It is one heck of a lot of work. And your material options are fewer here too. I put in a cedar fence in the front of my property. If interested, here is a link that you can see that shows what I did. The fencing pics are at down the page a ways:

http://www.free2w.com/itsajokeson/default.htm

I have no idea what someone here would have charged to do it. I brought enough of the cedar to do a lot more, but no way will I do it.

[lquade]

well im a girl and i dug alot of post holes and we went down between 18 and 24" depending on if terminial posts... the hardest part for me was lifting the cement.. thank goodness when hubby got here.. but crissy, go try and see what kind of soil you have... they quoted me 1700 per line that cost me 600 to do myself and again that included the privacy screen and gate which they werent including. my rock wall was about $4000 5 ft high 2 6ft column, about 60 feet across the exposed road...

[jdirgo]

Well, its not the vinyl fencing you're doing, but Kawika Stephens (Stevens?) gave me a very reasonable estimate for a wood privacy fence for my Hilo house. He did say that the vinyl was more expensive but his quote for much more than 135 feet was about a third of what you were quoted. Just search "Fencing" here on the site to locate him.

Oh and thanks for the recommendation, Pam! We decided to get some of the other work on the house done before we do the fence, but I was impressed with how responsive and on-time Kawika was. He took the time to really explain our options and had us the quote in just a couple of days, with a map showing just how it would be installed in relation to the house. Now that the yard is in better shape (he was going to have to a lot of machete work to be able to install the fence), I probably need to get back with him and get on his schedule for installation. Nice guy and super-professional.

John Dirgo, RA, ABR, e-PRO
Island Trust Properties, LLC
808-987-9243 cell
http://www.hawaiirealproperty.com

[Crizzy]

Thanks for the info. My main concern is visual privacy of my house from the road. I will look into wood options and call Kawika.