Tag Archives: recycle

Choosing a Vinyl Fence for your yard

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As I have written about my yard and fences before: Removing an Old Fence The fence in my yard could use replacing. After a few years of pondering, saving and dragging my feet I decided that this was the year to replace our fence.

One section done while another is being put together.

I will start this post by saying that installing a fence properly is no small task. The fence I took down was put in with minimal effort. As I like to do things properly I did a lot of research into fencing and found that the best product overall for my situation was Vinyl Fencing. With no parts to rot, chip, stain it will last for years as long as I don’t run it over with my tractor.

What I found was there are a lot of fencing companies out there with big and small differences between them. Fencing found in big box stores are often made of lower quality materials and have some obvious traits.

Big Box Fencing Characteristics:

  • Weak walled boards and posts
  • Exposed brackets
  • Parts that will rust
  • Decorative Posts that cover wood
  • Rigid, Brittle plastics
  • Made in China
After checking out several fence contractors and examining products I decided to go with Active Yards. Their fencing had a build quality that I found to be impressive. Combined with an easy and effective design I was sold on their product. On top of that they are an American company that makes their product in this country! (I was not sponsored by Active Yards in any way)
High Quality Fencing Characteristics:
  • Solid construction
  • Invisible, routed brackets
  • No rusting parts
  • Solid Vinyl posts that will never rot
  • Easily assembled panels
  • Lifetime Warranty
  • American Made (there are some quality imported fences)
The Active Yards fencing had all of these characteristics, once I had the post holes dug the fence literally snapped into place.

 

The sections literally snap into place with the routed grooves!

If you are looking to install a fence make sure to go with a reputable fence company. After looking at about half a dozen companies I went with Active Yards, they had the best product at a great price point.

The next post will be on the install of a fence. This will include tips from the professionals and some great time saving techniques.

Removing an old fence, for a good cause

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As I have mentioned before, I am about to install a new fence on my property. When we moved to our house we knew there were a lot of things that needed to be fixed, even though it was built in 2001. One of the biggest items was the fence.

My house looks great, but the fence does not.

The fence is in good shape, but not standing straight

As you can see this fence has had better days. First of all it was not installed properly that could not hold up to the brutal New England seasons we have. We live in a high elevation zone where there is constant wind, massive snow storms and lots of rain throughout the year. After 10 years of abuse and theformative years with no proper maintenance it started to show its age.

It might have been upright once, but not anymore.

That is NOT level!

The fence itself is not in horrible shape. Sure there are a few sections that have some rot and broken pieces. There is also the color, an awful brown color that did not go with our white siding one bit… That is why I decided to donate this fencing to Habitat for Humanity Restore Outlets They take materials like this and make them available to people who need them. Now instead of throwing this away, or burning it I know it will go and provide years of help to another family that needs a fence.

They even came by to pick up the fence!

Taking this fence down was pretty easy. I did half of it by myself in a few hours and the rest down in two hours with a friend.

This 4ft picket was easy to take down solo

In case you were wondering, that is not how my property line goes. It is a straight line, not a curve. To take this fence down was really simple, as most of the posts were either resting on the ground, or only a few inches down.

This is how far a post was in for a 6ft section.. YIKES!!!

The picket fence came down with ease and stacking it was simple. The other side of the house however was a different story. It consisted of about 12 sections of 6ftX8ft fencing and it was bulky to move! Luckily I had my friend Gene help me out.

Lots of fencing, I told Gene if he helped I would make him an internet star!

Working together we came up with a nice system to remove the sections and then take out the posts.

Take out a few sections and then remove the posts.

This moved extremely quickly until we were had them all down.

All down! Now we are done right?

With help, and poor construction methods this fence came down easily. Most of the posts were only a few inches in. and a total of 3 had concrete (minimal).

Hammer height is for outlets, not fence posts!

 

Looked like it was secure, but it was not!

Since these are going to Habitat and I wanted to make sure they stayed safe until they were picked up I stacked them in my driveway. Instead of carrying them I used my John Deere and cart to carry them.

Oh the things you can do with a tractor and a cart!

This allowed us to move them quickly around the yard. Yes, Gene did get to ride in the trailer :)

Overall the project was quick and easy to take down. Habitat came today, but they could only take a few sections as they did not realize how much fencing I was donating, so they will be back next week to pick up the rest.

Remember if you have something that you are going to be replacing or getting rid of, see if someone else could use it before you throw it away!