Tips For Choosing The Best Fence

As a homeowner, you have various fence options to choose from and many things to consider before building a fence. You need to be sure the fence you pick meets the needs of your home.

What is your goal? Is it to keep your children and pets inside? Increase privacy? Add value to your home by giving the yard a nice look?

You must take maintenance and cost into account, investigate neighborhood restrictions and make sure you hire the right fencing contractor to install it.

Whether picking between a white picket fence or a wooden privacy fence, carefully consider the type of fence you choose before making an investment A new fence isn't cheap so you want to make the right decision!

1. Pick The Best Fence For Your Yard:
Homeowners install fences for privacy, visual appeal, or for the safety of pets and children. If done right, fences are one of the key landscaping features that increase property values. Ask yourself why you need a fence and let that answer guide your decision making. Prioritize your needs over your wants, not the other way around.

If you need privacy, wooden fences tend to work best, although vinyl fencing is also another viable option. If you opt for a vinyl fence, be sure the panels aren't too far apart!

Homeowners who don’t need privacy can turn to an aluminum fence, which gives a yard a classy, open look. If you mainly need a fence to protect a pet or a child, no particular type of fence necessarily works best over the other. Just make sure to build the fence with containment in mind. For example, if you want to build a fence to keep a pet confined in your yard, understand what your animal is capable of in terms of digging and jumping.

2. Fence Maintenance:
Before installing a fence, be sure to ask yourself how much time you want to spend maintaining your fence. Wooden fencing requires the most maintenance because of the fence painting and staining required every couple years, but it can boost your property value by making your yard aesthetically pleasing.

Aluminum or vinyl fencing requires little ongoing upkeep, which makes those fence options appealing to many homeowners. Wood fences offer the benefit of being more easily repaired than metal. If a storm damages a few boards, you can replace them and make it blend in with the rest of your fencing fairly easily. If you need to replace a section of a vinyl or aluminum fence, you may find the fence manufacturer no longer exists or sells the product, making it hard to find fencing that matches what you already have in your yard.

3. Check With Your HOA:
You may not have a say in the type of fence you can build if a home owner's association governs your neighborhood! Make sure the fence you want meets the organization’s standards for materials and height before moving ahead with a project. Follow community association guidelines and procedures, or risk facing legally enforceable fines.

4. Choose The Right Fencing Contractor:
When installing a fence, instead of doing it yourself, consider hiring a professional like All About Fencing in Nashville. When you're looking for your fence contractor, make sure they will secure all the building permits you may need through your city or county. Your local planning and zoning department can provide you with a plat map of your property, so you can properly designate your property boundaries and better plan the fence's location. Your neighborhood HOA may require that map before approving your fence installation.

All About Fencing in Nashville has been in business for over 15 years and has over 20 years of fencing experience! For a free estimate, give us a call at 615-587-0520.

Be sure to visit us HERE to sign up for special offers and discounts!

Horse Fencing Ideas

Franklin, TN has the most glorious settings for expanding horse farms. Sometimes, I like to just... take a drive and look at all of the beautiful land and animals! One thing I always notice are the beautiful fences!

During the course of your daily chores, you probably encounter areas of your horse fencing system that need some serious help. You know that the longer you wait, weather and your horses will continue to take their toll. But, of course, budget, time and manpower considerations may make installing a new fence system out of the question. What are your options? There are actually several ways to improve the condition of an existing fence system, but you need to know where to start!

First, you need to evaluate the fence in question, making careful notes about the condition of posts, rail, wire, mesh, brackets - whatever materials are used. Prioritize your problems by identifying those areas that need immediate attention to ensure the safe containment of your horses. Now find an expert with a fencing company like All About Fencing.  Be prepared to tell them what kind of fence you have; how many rails and of what material (wood, flexible rail, woven wire, mesh, etc.); current post spacing; bracing used (if any) for ends, corners and gate areas; size of the fenced area; number of horses regularly maintained in the area; unusual soil conditions; and the problems you are experiencing. The more information you share and the more questions you ask, the better equipped All About Fencing will be to advise you about the solutions available. You may want to discuss some of the following options with your fence expert:

• Adding electric to a spilt rail "broken" fence system. This type of post-and-rail fence generally constructed of wood is referred to as "broken" because the rails are installed as an independent unit from one post to the next contiguous post. As a rule, a split rail fence without electric will last anywhere from eight to twelve years with moderate daily use. Install new posts in the place of any that have begun to rot at the base, replace warped or damaged rails, and ensure that you have even soil compaction on both sides of the fence line to prevent loose or leaning posts. Avoid "quick fixes" such as supporting bad posts by driving stakes next to them or tying rails to posts; these can create a hazard for your horses. Supplement your repaired fence with electric mesh to minimize cribbing, "walking down", leaning or other equine behaviors that will damage your fence. 
• Add a top site rail to woven wire fence. First, replace or repair any broken or damaged areas in a woven wire fence. Exercise care in splicing woven wire; each splice needs to be crimped and checked for sharp edges that can cut your horse (or you!). Check tensioning of your woven wire fence and ensure you have proper bracing in place on corners, ends and gate posts. Never use uncoated wire for fencing horses or other animals. Improve visibility of the fence by adding a top rail of continuous run flexible fencing. In widths ranging from 1" to 5-1/4", this type fencing has tremendous break strength which will alleviate the load on the woven wire.
• Ensure proper post spacing. For all fence systems, posts should be spaced at no more than 12 feet. Generally, a need for more than normal levels of maintenance may indicate inadequate post support for your fence. If your current fence has post spacing of 15 feet or more, you should consider adding posts to better distribute the pressure that your horses and the weather place on a fence. 

Horses spend 50 to 100% of their time in a pasture surrounded by fence, so you need to make sure you maintain a safe, strong living space for your equine friends!!! 

Whether you're looking for a repair or an entire new fence, All About Fencing will do the job right! give us a call at 615-587-0520! 

Be sure to visit us HERE to sign up for special offers and discounts! 

Privacy Fences

Whether you're trying to keep your pets in or keep your neighbors out, a privacy fence may be what you're looking for. You may build a 6-ft. high privacy fence only to find that your next-door neighbors can easily see over when they're lounging on their deck. On the other hand, you may find that your 6-ft. tall privacy fence only needed to be 4 ft. tall because surrounding areas slope away from your yard. Either way, you're wasting materials, money and time building a fence that doesn't suit your yard.

All About Fencing in Nashville doesn't want you to waste money! To determine how high a privacy fence needs to be, bring someone with you to walk around the perimeter with a cardboard screen cut to the height of your proposed fence. Sitting and standing, follow the view above the cardboard as it's moved to determine the amount of privacy your fence will actually provide.

You can quickly decide how high your fence needs to be or whether it's impractical to build a fence high enough to screen your yard. Then consider alternatives such as fast growing dense trees or bushes that aren't subject to the same height restrictions as fences. Or, if you have a patio or spa you'd like to seclude, build a privacy screen just around that area.

Whether you're looking for a privacy fence or an ornamental fence, All About Fencing has been in business for over 20 years so we have both the knowledge and experience to help guide you in the right direction! Our service area spans from Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia!

Be sure to visit us HERE to sign up for special offers and discounts! Give us a call today at 615-587-0520.