How to build a cedar fence or any wood fence (part 2)

In this post I will talk a little bit about demolition and disposal of the existing fence, but before I start there is a few little things I missed in the part 1 that I want to go over.

When you got your materials list done it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to check a few lumber stores to find a best bargain because even a 10 cents per board will add up to a pretty big chunk of money and stores always have specials and sales to watch for. So take your time and shop around.
Another thing is if you are building a lot of fence it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to ask if there is an option to have materials delivered to your house. Some places might even offer it for free if you are not to far from the store or there might be a small fee for that, but it might be worth paying if you need a lot of materials and don't have proper vehicle to deliver it your self.

DEMOLITION

Ok you might ask why even waist time on talking about demolition in the first place, take a sledge hammer and go crazy on it like they do it in home improvement tv shows. It looks good on tv thats all.
Before I even start the demolition I usually inspect the fence, aseptically the really bad parts and try to figure out why it got so bad in the first place.

In the photos above you can see that the fence is in a very bad shape and needs to be replaced, in fact it was so bad that a few days before I started the job two of the middle sections got nocked down by the wind, and when I was taking it apart most of the post you could snap off with one hand.

In the first picture you can see that yard is slopped towards the fence, and in the second and third picture you can really see that the bottom framing is laying on the ground and the grass is much taller than the framing. In the third picture the ground is actually higher than the board.

So with the yard sloping towards the fence and the framing laying on the ground and grass is taller than the framing we can say for sure that this was one of the problems that made this fence to go bad.

It is very important to pay close attention to those details because when building a new fence we can use that information to make sure the new fence will not have that problem. We will get back to this when we talk about building the fence in future posts.

Ok now about demolition. First thing never forget to wear eye protection and gloves!
I usually make two trips to dispose of an old fence. First I take each section out and remove the fence boards, by doing that I am able to stack every cedar board nice and compact in my truck and take all of them in one trip. If you go sledge hammer on it, you will end up with a lot of small pieces that are very hard to pick up from grass and your load is all messy and chances are nothing will fit in the truck unless you have a 40 yard dumpster. The reason I take seder and clean wood first is because I recycle it and pay cents on the dollar compare to what it cost at land fill where you dump garbage, and in some areas you can even recycle it for free you should check in your area maybe you be lucky. The reason only cedar and clean wood is because you cannot recycle pressure treated lumber, it has to do with the chemicals they use. On the second trip I take posts and other pressure treated lumber to the land fill.
Another thing you should be really careful with is the nails, last thing you want to do is step on the rusty nail and get an infection. Also after you are done try and pick up all of the nails you see and do that after you are done building the fence. To make that job faster you can get a magnet sweeper at your local hardware store and go through the area you worked to make sure there are no nails in the grass. Lawn mowers and nails in the grass never a good combination.

Ok this should about cover the demolition, in the next post we will talk about laying out and setting posts.

Remember always be careful when working on construction projects especially when using power tools...
Good luck
Aleksandr

You can always find me here:
www.vitconstruction.org
vitconstruction@hotmail.com

Also visit my youtube channel