building a fence is the easiest way to
give your property some extra safety
security and privacy from the road or
from your neighbours everyone will see
it too so it's a good reason to make
sure it's built well and looks good the
fence we're building here is a simple
post rail impaling fence follow these
instructions and with a good plan you'll
be able to do it yourself now there's a
few things you need to be aware of
before you get into it firstly you can
build a fence up to 2.5 metres high
without a building permit but it's
always best to check with your council
before starting and if you're building
on a boundary line you're best to talk
to your neighbour about what sort of
fence you're building it's costs and
your start time also download a copy of
the fencing act to make sure you're in
the know next you'll need to establish
your boundary if you can't find your
boundary pegs get a copy of your plans
from the council or get a surveyor in to
help you out also it's important to
check your council plans to see where
all your pipes are located you certainly
don't want to hit any of those and also
you'll need to call your electricity
provider for info on underground wires
because these may not be shown on your
plans
okay so now it's time to decide what
your fence is going to look like and
what materials you're going to use to
build it in our situation we're just
going to match the existing fence with a
rough sawn post 4x2 rails and rough sawn
fence palings you can also get dressed
or glue laminate posts and a variety of
paint finish palings in different sizes
so now you can measure up draw yourself
a plan and get your materials ordered a
few days before you start the job
okay the side's been cleared so i've got
a nice clean canvas to work with the
first thing i have to do is establish
exactly where my boundary is so i can
put up my string line
okay i've got my string line up now not
only does this represent exactly where
my boundary line is it also represents
the center of my post holes normally
when i build a fence i put my posts at
no more than two meters apart you can go
up to 2.4 in this situation i've
measured out
and
2 meters is exactly where the existing
fence was and i can see there's still
concrete in the hole i don't want to dig
all that concrete out so what i'm going
to do is actually
space my posts a little bit closer
together at the moment i've got five
posts i'm going to put one extra post in
so that's going to give me six posts
which will mean i can get away from all
that existing concrete using my tape
measure and dazzle i'll measure and mark
the center of each post along the
boundary line then i'm ready to dig my
holes which need to be a minimum of 250
millimeters in diameter and 600
millimeters deep you can use a spade to
take them by hand but i've hired a post
tile borer to make the job nice and easy
so i measure and mark the required depth
on the auger so i know when to stop
i'm using a two person post hole borer
so i've got a maiden to help
and make sure to clean the hole out
before you drop your posts in
okay all my post holes are dug they're
looking great i'm just about ready to
throw my posts in ready for concrete now
i've moved our string line which was the
center of our post holes i've moved that
over a hundred millimeters
i got to 100 because our post is 100
thick so i'm coming half that which is
50 and i'm just going to keep our string
line 50 millimeters off
our post the reason for that is most of
the time these rough sawn posts have a
few dags on them and that could affect
our string line if the string line was
to be hard up against it i've also put a
string line at the top that's 100
millimeters away from our center as well
now i've got two different fence heights
i've got one here that i'm starting from
and one down the other end that's 200
millimeters higher so i've set the
string line up using my laser to shoot a
nice straight line and i'll keep my
posts full length then cut them to
height down the track now i'm just about
ready to put my posts in
i've got a bit of concrete in the bottom
for my post to sit on because we don't
want our posts touching the ground now
i've also got myself an off cut of 4x2
here which is 50 ml thick so i'm going
to use that in between the post and the
string line just to use as a rule
and i've also got
a couple of braces here with screws
already in the end ready for me to screw
into my pegs that i've already plunked
in the ground because i'm working on my
own i just have to get myself set up to
make it easy so what i'm going to do
put my brace
up against my peg
and just got to make sure that i'm 50
mil away
which is the thickness of our block
that's pretty good down there
and it's about five mil away so it says
i just need to
tweak that bottom over a tad
and we'll come back check that okay so
that's looking good so what we'll do
is put a screw in our brace
and we'll put one down here
so just going to pick up my brace and
put that on the other side of the pig
i'll do a quick check for plumb and
secure the second brace at the top and
the bottom
okay that's looking great so what i'm
going to do now is set up my next post
use the same peg come back on to that
process is exactly the same
and that's all my posts braced ready for
concrete
i've mixed up all my concrete as per the
instructions on the back of my bag all i
have to do
plonk that in the hole about 100
millimeters from the top work out any
bubbles and let it sit for 24 hours
okay it's been 24 hours the concrete's
nice and set the posts are looking good
next thing i have to do is take our
braces off
righty-o so i'm just about ready to
start marking out my fence post for
where my rails are situated i'm just
going to match in with my existing fence
here we're 50 millimeters down from my
string line here which indicates the top
of my paling
now normally you could go a maximum of
150 millimeters from your top of your
rail to the top of your paling so we're
just going to copy in here what's here
50 mil down so we're going to keep that
line all the way through
so my first new post i'll mark 50
millimeters down from the string line
do the same on my last post and then run
a chalk line between the two indicating
the top of my first set of rails
and to match the existing i'll do the
same for the middle rails
now for my bottom rail ultimately i'd
like to match up with what's existing
but i can't do that because my ground
level here is slightly higher than over
there so what i'm going to do is just
take our ground level and come up 50
millimeters and that measurement there
will be the bottom of our rail if i
wasn't working in with an existing fence
i would mark the top of my top rail 150
millimeters down from the top of the
fence the bottom of my bottom rail 150
millimeters up from the ground and then
split the difference for the middle rail
so that's the bottom of my bottom rail
marked on all my posts yeah there's a
couple of different ways we can fix our
fence rails one is to the face like that
spanning over three posts or what we're
going to do is take our fence rails and
fix it in between our posts
now when you start measuring out for
your rails in between the posts take the
measurement at the bottom and use that
for all three rails
i've already squared my mark around i've
got a nail sitting on there that's going
to help me out so i'll just sit that in
there nice and flush with the front
now you could use four inch nails or a
90 ml galvanized nails to fix that to
the post what i like to use is these 100
mil galvanized bugle screws reason for
that is
it's going to reduce any twisting or
warping of our posts and our rails and
it's just going to hold everything
together nice and strong now if you are
working in a high wind zone i'd
recommend you use something like a 100
mil by 10 mil coach screw that'll fix it
in nice and strong as well
and it's best practice to use three
screws per rail on each end
for our top rail what i will use is my
strop to make sure i type those two
posts in really nice and tight
[Music]
my fence rails are up they're looking
fantastic now when we put our palings to
our rails we want to keep them off the
ground about 20 odd mil so i've just
laid a board down there and we're just
going to drop our paling on top of that
now i've left my line on here that's
always been our level line and our
boards are going to stick above it
because we're not staying to this height
we're staying to our height on the other
end of the fence which is 200
millimeters down so i'm going to use the
string line to get a nice straight line
later and then come back cut those off
and then cut our posts off
because i'm using a 25 millimeter thick
fencing piling i'm going to use my 65
mil galvanized fencing nail to fix these
and i'm going to be using my nail gunner
to apply the nail through now obviously
you can use a hammer and nail to do this
a couple more little tips before you
crack into it
when we put our boards up we're going to
use a hammer and chisel get it nice and
tight
because nine times out of ten
these boards have got a lot of moisture
in them when the sun hits them and dries
them out more than likely you'll get a
little gap so we'll try and avoid that
and then fix them with two nails per
pailing on each rail
and about every six or seven boards
we're going to throw our trusty level on
there just to make sure we're staying
plumb the whole way
another week tip is to use a spirit
level to give yourself a straight line
for your nails to follow
a few rails from the end measure the
remaining space as you may very well
need to rip your final paling down to
fit simply measure and mark each end
roll a line along and cut it down using
your circular saw
[Music]
then fix it in place and that's all our
palings on
i've flicked the chalk line on the wall
here for me to cut the top of my palings
off now i'm just going to use my trusty
circular saw to do that it's going to
sit that just the depth of the palings
and you could put a board underneath
here if you don't trust yourself with a
nice straight free hand but however i'm
just going to freehand that and give
myself a nice straight line
then finally cut the posts off at an
angle so the water runs off
so there's our new fence just stick to
the plan and it'll be easy as make sure
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