Build a garden fence yourself – instructions (wood, metal, plastic)

Wood, metal and plastic have their advantages and disadvantages when used as fence construction material:

• With the wooden garden fence you can build the most individual fence.
• Because you can process wood in many ways into something that delimits your property in a narrow and elongated manner.
• Classic wooden fences are made in many different construction methods, each with a different effect.
• Which can be further varied through variants in material and color.
• Many traditional wooden fences are offered as ready-made garden fence elements that can be built with little effort.
• If you use the right wood and prepare it properly, even without setting the posts in concrete.
• But you can also put a lot more work into a fence (individual battens, concrete posts).
• The world of metal fence elements is also large and diverse.
• Metal fences come in many designs, from clear and simple to endlessly ornate.
• And in many colors, with a green coating or in natural metal tones.
• You usually acquire entire elements that can be installed very quickly.
• Which, however, are not really cheap.
• They are also usually attached to posts set in concrete.
• In addition, when building a fence, it must be taken into account that the material is not very light.
• However, this has the advantage that the most massive fences (after walls) can be created with metal.
• Plastic fence elements are also offered as finished units.
• They are considerably lighter than metal fence elements, but their effect is not for everyone.
• You should inquire carefully about the material of a plastic fence.
• Plastic fence elements made of PVC are still sold today.
• Not a dream material for people who love themselves, their fellow human beings and their environment.
• PVC is problematic in terms of production and recycling.
• It contains plasticizers, which we know today that they can get into the human organism and damage it.
• Plastic fences made of polyethylene are better, and not unproblematic either.
• For people with a progressive mind, a “plastic” fence made of WPC or BPC is an option
• WPC is a wood-plastic composite material that consists of wood (usually wood flour) and polypropylene.
• So residues from wood production + “more environmentally friendly plastic” (polypropylene is also made from fossil fuels)
• BPC is created in exactly the same way, only the wood is replaced by bamboo fibers, a robust and rapidly renewable raw material.

Legal requirements

The majority of people only perceive the fence as a beautiful fence that blends in harmoniously with its surroundings. In principle, this is followed by the legal requirements, even if different laws and regulations relating to the fence apply in each federal state and often also in each place in this state.

If you want to build exactly the same fence that a dozen neighbors already have in your settlement, nothing should stand in the way of building this fence. Only if you want to build a particularly high fence should you ask the municipality or check the local regulations to see whether statements have been made about the height of the property boundary.

If you intend to do something other than the “local fencing”, you should either inquire carefully whether this fence is still covered by local neighborhood law or talk to your neighbors. Talking to the neighbors should actually end in a written agreement, otherwise you have bad cards in a possible later process. The material, the height and the color, or an innovative combination of materials, can be perceived as unusual in the location.

When the basic preparations have been completed, you can assess what is allowed and give detailed thought to the appearance of your future fence:

The individual fence

If you don’t want to design your environment with ready-made mass-produced goods, but rather the way you really like it, here are some fence ideas:

• With a wooden fence you have many options for a unique design; posts, slats and cross members can be given their own embossing.
• By type of wood and lath width, processing or not, glaze and color and many details.
• Such details are e.g. B. special screws in copper, brass or wrought iron.
• And of course the post caps, from the post cap with a copper ball to the one with a ceramic animal.
• You can also make “art on the fence” with wooden fence elements that you have sawn out yourself.
• So all kinds of shapes could guard your property, animals and fabulous characters or whatever else your imagination can give.
• The design of your choice can of course be influenced in many ways by the color scheme.
• Posts in one color, battens or fence elements in another.
• Or different colored fence slats, graduated tone in tone, that doesn’t look too restless and very noble.
• The easiest way to achieve a special effect with metal fences is to paint the fence in a slightly unusual color.
• Please not exactly pink, that could upset the neighbors, rather a dark wine red or green or a copper tone or dark silver.
• You can also make art out of metal fence elements, or have an art locksmith do it according to your designs.
• All fences can not only be decorated with post caps, but also have individual picket covers as a protective and decorative ornament.
• For example, as the result of a winter children’s activity project, according to which the fence tells a story …

Build wooden fence yourself

Wooden fences consist of posts that are connected with cross beams, to which fence battens, stakes, etc. are attached. Mighty posts, girders and slats can be built into a massive fence around the property, or lighter ones to create a tight privacy screen and wind protection, or you can build an airy fence structure that is also a trellis. Everything with wood of different thicknesses and widths and surfaces with different intensities, but first you have to decide which wood you want to use. The wood plays an important role in the durability of the fence because every fence comes in contact with earth, water and wind.

Woods have different levels of resistance to weathering; the stars in this regard are some tropical woods. Today they are hardly used to build fences because they are destroying the last of the rainforests, are hardly available in mature qualities and are very expensive even as young wood from the plantation. Among the native woods, we have oak, chestnut and robinia wood with resistance class 1-2, weather-resistant for up to 25 years even without wood protection. Pine, larch, Douglas fir (resistance class 3-4), spruce, fir and elm = elm (resistance class 4) can also last a very long time if contact with the ground is kept as low as possible (post shoes, posts on concrete substructure), end-grain wood protected with post caps will be pointed and staked water drainage.

When you have decided on the type of wood, you should find out in which thicknesses posts, beams and battens are generally offered in stores. Now look for the exact instructions according to which your dream wooden fence can be built and then check whether you can build this fence using the pre-cut parts. You can save a lot of time, money, brainpower and explanations if you don’t need special cuts, but can simply follow the standard instructions.

Build metal fence yourself

The metal fence is the fence with the most massive effect of the three materials discussed here. You can reinforce this effect by using small masonry pillars instead of posts, between which the metal fence elements are placed. If you set posts, they should be set up in a small point foundation so that the fence elements can be securely fastened.

The manufacturer’s instructions will tell you how your metal fence is built in detail. Which you should study carefully before buying, some metal fences meet high requirements in terms of security and resilience, but are then not that uncomplicated and can only be built with helpers. You should also carefully calculate your fence and all of its accessories before you buy it; there are certainly fences with reasonably priced metal fence elements that will cost you an astonishing amount of money for all the odds and ends that you need to set up.

If you want your metal fence to be painted in color, this should be done before it is set up, if you have a large table available on which to lay out the metal fence panels – they are much more convenient to paint there. After cleaning and degreasing the fence elements (with new fence elements, normal cleaner with degreaser is sufficient) proceed as follows:

• Apply rust protection primer, depending on the fence area with a brush or roller
• Let the anti-rust primer dry well
• Roughen the surface with sandpaper
• Apply the first layer of varnish, allow to dry
• Sand the first coat of paint and remove dust with a soft brush / cloth
• Apply a second final coat of varnish

Painting over is also the most important ongoing maintenance you should give your metal fence. All of the above applies to this ongoing maintenance, but the fence is painted in the attached state, this vertical painting is a little less convenient and takes a little longer.

If your fence has a noble, rather restrained color such as copper brown, brown gray or anthracite, you can paint the fence and “make it beautiful” work it bit by bit. Depending on how complicated your fence is to paint, the route to the next corner, or every third, fourth, or fifth fence field when the sun is shining. The latter method is conceivable for fences with iridescent paint, where the fence never appears in a uniform color anyway.

Here you would first have to remove dirt and any loose old paint with a strong brush, a fine wire brush and sandpaper. Then the piece of fence currently to be treated is washed off with thinner, which removes dust, makes the metal fence free of grease and ready for priming. Rust spots must be sanded off particularly thoroughly so that the corrosion does not continue to eat, and they must be sealed several times with a rust protection primer.

Build a plastic fence yourself

There are different systems and therefore different instructions for assembling plastic fences. Here is a crucial point that you should find out exactly what condition the fence will be delivered in. Plastic fences are often delivered disassembled into the smallest individual parts, and then you have to do the right thing, here is an example:

• Pre-drill every single fence picket twice
• For a 50 m fence, saw around 100 crossbars to the required length
• Drill a hole in the crossbar at the top for each fence picket
• With 9 battens per meter, that’s 9 holes
• With 50 meters of fence around 450 holes that have to be drilled in the middle
• The same in the crossbar below
• Then 1,000 screws have to be screwed

A cap is then placed on each fence picket, posts have to be set, brackets screwed onto posts and crossbars screwed onto brackets, that’s more than an afternoon program and does not involve building a wooden fence, in which the stakes are simply screwed onto the girders while lying down more to compare …

Conclusion A
fence is not just a fence, it can make a property look friendly and inviting or serious and unwelcoming. You have the choice, whereby you can create the most massive, but also the most expensive fencing (except a wall) with metal and actually any fence of your choice with wood, massive and very airy and comparatively inexpensive. Plastic fences are more conceivable for purely decorative purposes, if you can perceive plastic as an ornament, but at the moment the selection of materials is still rather problematic (experiments with bio-plastics are on the rise).