Fence help

Hi and welcome to forum and a lifetime of doing jobs for you partner

Design 1 is plenty strong enough. A better solution is to do a hit and miss. Where you alternate the boards either side



What a lot of us do is to put to treat the posts well before going into the ground. At the bottom of the hole lay two bricks and some lose gravel and stand the posts on these as concrete them. Then at ground level round off the top of the concrete.

One thing that can add extra strength and make a nice feature is at set points put in a second post about 600mm at 90 degrees to one of the posts and then put some panelling in between two as well. This stops the fence swaying and gives something to set a climber or tree against.

BTW ignore the old saying that the good side of a fence has to face the neighbours or the left hand fence is yours - both are urban myths

Good luck

 

Always the best way to be

There are quite a few very experienced people of here that will give you lots of advice about homes and garden

 

Yes to a point, personally I would have the board's set a little closer to one and other, so on you drawing overlaps the opposite board by 1 square, or 25% this will help with the fence being less see through.

 

The best way is to fix the rails to the face of the posts which makes it easier to fit and stronger

 

Its ok that's what the forum is for. We don't mind sharing our experience and knowledge especially if someone is quite genuine.

No problem if you want us to look over pictures of the potential purchase

 

75 cubic metres would cost you about £6k

If you can dig a circular hole you really would be a perfectionist. I would assume it is 400mm x 400mm x 600mm or 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.6 which gives you roughly 0.01 cubic metres

But the easiest thing to use is Postcrete. No mixing, no mess just get the girlfriend to hold the post in place. sprinkle the bag contents into the hole and pour water on top. You have 10 mins before it is set to get it plumb and in-line. Typically I use 2 bags per post. Wickes / B&Q do mulibuy deals and any surplus you can take back. If you get a B&Q membership card (free) the regularly send you vouchers for 10%-20% off.

 

1m3 is 100x100x100 = 1,000,000cm3

I think you need about 0.15m3 per post from your dimensions

 

t a hole that is 40cm x40cm x 60cm is big enough if not overlarge

which is 0.4m x 0.4m x 0.6m = 0.096 of a cubic meter rounding up it is 0.1m cubic meters per hole.

 

Postcrete is very accurately mixed. The only downside is that for larger jobs it becomes quite expensive. The alternative would be to buy a jumbo bag of sand delivered. There are just under a cubic metre, bags of cement and then mix it up yourself. The main problem using standard concrete for posts is the setting time which could be over 24 hours. During this time the posts invariably move out of alignment.

 

It's just premixed rapid setting concrete, you could probably save money using ballast+rapid set cement, but then you'd want a cement mixer, or a strong back and a shovel.

 

To put the posts in all you will need is a spade, string to line the posts up and a post level £2.19 (http://www.toolstation.com/shop/p61906?searchstr=post level)

 

I'm in a very similar situation to yourself.

We live in a very high wind area and I need to run a 20m fence between ours and the neighbours as part of a total garden makeover in our new house.

Privacy is of upmost importance so it's going to be the full 2m as allowed without planning, of course fully closed board would be unwise with the high winds so I'll tell/show you how I'm doing it as it may give you some ideas. I've probably totally over enginered it but I'd rather it was stronger than it needs to be.

3m 4"x4" UC4 tanalised fence posts
4"x2" UC4 tanalised "rails"
100mm x 1800mm UC4 tanalised treated panels (pickets)
150mm UC4 tanalised gravel boards

Sinking the posts a full 1m below ground on a bed of gravel, then backfilling with soil, compacting down very tightly leaving 700mm wich is then filled with 50kg of post mix. (2 and a half bags of Tarmac branded stuff, £3.45 a bag from one of the big places and superb stuff to be fair!)
The distance between the posts is 1.65m ( I added an extra post in the run taking the span down a bit compared to the usual 1.8m because it suited the run I had better and of course adds a little more strength)

My posts I've added a DPM to the area that will be covered with the concrete and the top 4-5 inches of the post above ground, I had it left from building my workshop (also totally over-engineered lol) so thought no harm using it and if it protects the post where it exits then it's got to be doing some good as this is where they usually tend to rot, I MAY also be able to, if required, using a farm jack, actually remove a post in situ as effectively the concrete wont have bonded with the post due to the DPM, possibly be able to fit another post down the very same hole too, not sure but it may work if I ever needed to.

First up on the bottom will be a 150mm wide, 19mm thick gravel board running between the two posts and mounted 5cm in on the face of both posts, as this will be a 2m fence, with the gravel board I can utilise standard 1.8m panels (pickets) to achieve the full 2m

My rails will be 3 rails of treated 4x2, they will be fitted exactly between the posts long ways if that makes sense (so they mate with the posts exact 4 inch width) and I'm securing them using the Kreg HD pocket hole system (google it) which is is extremely strong, the pocket holes will be drilled on the underside of the rails so not to collect any water. I'm then left with a flush "face" on both sides of the fence for fitting the panels (pickets)

My panels (pickets) will be 100mm wide x 19mm thick & 1800mm long and I'll be doing a much smaller gap of 20mm between them for the privacy, I'll be facing both sides of the fence with exactly the same setup so overall the privacy should be excellent whilst still having a gap for airflow, I work it out to be 20% or so reduction of wind pressure on the fence (over fully closed boarded) which I know works ok as the other side of the garden is a very basic fence with 150mm boards one side only and only a 25mm gap and there's been no issues with that, privacy is not a concern on that side.

The fence will be finished with a "capping" board along the top to keep it nice and tidy looking too.

Here's a quick diagram showing the above minus the panels (pickets) but you can get the idea.







All the posts are in now, finished today and whilst it was hard graft digging that deep, the 17lb Roughneck post hole diggertamper bar and Roughneck post hole "spoons" are ideal tools for the job and made it manageable for the odd rocky or rooty bits I had to go through (to be fair my ground is very good which helps).

I hope some of this is useful at least, like I say probably totally over engineered and I'm not claiming to be some fencing expert or anything but it will be a nice looking, very strong, very private and should be very long lasting fence in the end.

Let us know how you get on whatever you decide to do!