To what standard of work should be expected from a fencing contractor?

[james ds]

Depends on the customer but we are digging in, happy at 100 metres a day, it's a lot of work digging and back filling

We have a blade for the digger to pull out the sod and back filling it , we use to do a lot of motorway fencing and the chain link had to be buried for badgers , it couldn't pay to dig in by hand.

 

[stugordon321]

I'm deffernantly looking to buy a quick fencer when funds alowe, due to only doing the odd agricultural work this will take time before I can afford one, my main goal is to get my little tractor sorted & a suitable post driver for it. With time I plan buying various bits of machinery to help speed the job up & make my life easy ire but like everything it takes time to earn the money to invest in new kit. Fully agree about being hard to find reliable lads that wrk well, I seem to find the village idiots that end up costing me time & money. Take my previous labourer, never listened to what I asked, instead of doing what I wanted would do something he "thought" would do only to go back & do it right so waisting time, then there was all the tools he would loose, leave behind or just break. He has to be the biggest mistake I've made since going on my own. It's so hard finding poeple that actually want to work, rather than getting paid to play on there phone all day. ( is it just me that attracts the village idiot?)
Hopefully hard work, high standard of work & competitive pricing will get me where I want to be in time. My problem is not knowing if I should keep plodding on with domestic fencing or getting kitted out to do more agricultural work although to be competitive I would need to buy some newer & bigger machinery which I can't justify the cost at the moment. I have to say I'm impressed at some with how much fencing some of you can put up in a day (providing the ground etc is good) Unfortunantly I live & work where parts of the ground are Stoney as he'll. last year I did some post & rail around a horse paddock, it was the worst digging I've ever come accross. Pure stone under the turf, the customer said how she had a contractor try doing the job before me using machinery. The ground was so hard they couldn't get the posts in deep enough & gave up on it. If I ever do more work around there I'll be adjusting my price to take the ground in to account.
So long as this year ( my second year on my own ) is better than last year I guess I'll be happy as at least the business is going where I want it too.
Thanks Stu

 

[ARW]

How do you make money only doing 100 mt / day , what is your labour rate.

£5.50 a metre for rabbit fencing dug in, £1.50 materials, £4 labour, £400 a day to cover 2 mens wages, tools and digger hire

 

[james ds]

£5.50 a metre for rabbit fencing dug in, £1.50 materials, £4 labour, £400 a day to cover 2 mens wages, tools and digger hire

That's great money for labour all you need now is to get your meters / day up , digging in by hand is hard work , I'd be using the digger .

 

[stugordon321]

ARW must have got lucky to find someone who's happy to graft hard & earn the money. As I said I have trubble finding reliable hard working labourers & seem to attract the village idiot. On those rates & metres a day I would be happy but some of the ground round this part of the country can be like going through solid stone, even using a BIG demolition bar or big breaker was still heard going. Lesson learnt on that job. Do a test dig to see what the ground conditions are like & adjust price accordingly, I don't like the idea of charging high prices but fair is fair, I'm happy to work hard all day but it has to be worth the effort or I would rather walk away from the job & let someone else take it on.
As said it's all down to using the right kit for the job & I till I'm kitted out properly I'll never be in a position where I can compete with contractors with big post drivers & even bigger tractors. If I had the chance of doing some long runs etc I would look to hire the machinery in to do the job but the price would have tobe worth the extra hassle & costs
Just plan plodding on with things & hopefully in time I'll get to where I would like to be. I will be happy making enough money to pay the bills & invest in better machinery etc as I no I'll never be ritch doing this work but I'm happy doing this rather than some crappy warehouse job or something,
Thanks Stu

 

[verdifish]

Hi all. Not sure if this is the right place for this post but here goes.
Out of curiosity to what standard would you as a paying customer expect from a fencing contractor?
My reason for asking is yesterday I passed this field that had some proper kit 3 big tractors with Parmitter drivers on the 3pt linkage. On way back from work passing said fields I noticed how shockingly sh:t there work was. Half the posts were put in so p:seed I couldn't belive they could expect to get paid for the job. Admittedly I was impressed by the amount of fencing they had done in the time given. They were erecting post & stock fencing. I'm unsure from looking at it if this is intended to permanent or tempery but even so surely the quality of work should still be upto standard. There's some civil engineering wrk going on as there were a few mini diggers & bigger 360s around some of the fields doing some big project. The fencing was done by what I assume to be proper fencing contractor by the kit they were using. I'm a fencer by trade, slowly establishing my own fencing business (mainly domestic housing etc) although I have & do agricultural fencing & in process of getting the machinery together to do more agricultural wrk (tractor & post driver etc) As a paying customer even "if" the fence is tempary or perminant too what standard of work would you expect ? Due to lack of funds so for any agricultural fencing I done I've either put the posts in with a hand held post knocker (tube with handles ) or dug holes out by hand with graft & either back filled & consolideded the soil bit by bit as I back fill or dig & concrete each post hole ( mainly for gate posts ) keeping every post true & level. I wouldn't be happy knowing I'd been paid good money for doing such a sh:t job.
What as farmers & paying customers would you expect from a fencing contractor ??
I'm interested to hear if you would be happy to pay for p:seed posts & that don't run in a straight & true line.
Thanks Stu.

Is this to do with the Aberdeen bypass scheme by chance?

 

[stugordon321]

No. The cival wrk I'm talking about is on the Banbury to oxford road. I've heard there finally putting a bypass in around Aberdeen starting by Stonehaven. I only know this as Aberdeen is where half my family come from. I assume there putting in miles of fencing too? What standard of work are they putting the fencing in??
Thanks Stu.

 

[verdifish]

No. The cival wrk I'm talking about is on the Banbury to oxford road. I've heard there finally putting a bypass in around Aberdeen starting by Stonehaven. I only know this as Aberdeen is where half my family come from. I assume there putting in miles of fencing too? What standard of work are they putting the fencing in??
Thanks Stu.

Not the best hence why I asked, I had to drive past a section of temporary fencing the other day that seemed to have been done by the local special school kids after a brewery trip. Actually this is whiskey country so is was probably a distillery trip

.All I know is, if our fencers had tried to charge us for for such a poor standard I'd have laughed them of off the yard.

 

[stugordon321]

Sounds like they used the same lads that put this fencing up. I can understand that contractors have to price wrk up cheap just to get the job, even so my view is the fence should still be erected properly with level & upright posts etc. these guys haven't even tried to get the gate posts level. It really is sh:t wrk. They've put double 5 bar field gates in every so often along the length of the fence but some gates point up in the air while others look like they must drag along the ground when opening them. I would be too embarrassed to ask for the payment if it was my job & I would expect the customer (farmer, civil company or home owner) to complain about the quality of work & either refuse to pay or at best want the price adjusted or the posts put in correctly before they pay up there hard to find cash.
My opinion still stands that if your doing "any" work then surely you should do it too the best of your ability temporary or permanent. I guess some poeple look at things differently to me.
Thanks Stu

 

[brynseiri]

That's where those petrol knockers are good I found them next too useless on wooden posts

And the fact they are £1500 odd, my first tractor knocker cost me £450 new, even though it was an evil fecking thing.

 

[brynseiri]

On my own I'm happy if I do 50m a day! Takes ages!

I find getting the posts in on my own fine, it's the netting that can be an arse, some days it goes perfect, other days I get one slip up and that's the day focked. Telegraph poles are pissing me off all of a sudden, the customer has bought them off the BT lads direct, utter sh!t, I'm not lying when I say there was one in the heap dated 1908, it had focking everything nailed to it. I hate stripping and pointing them, tin tacks, nails, staples, Earth wires all over them, blunt the chainsaw, not to mention the bloody climbing pegs on them. The creosote sawdust burns my lips too. Does anyone know of a sawmill that churns out half decent creosote strainers and gateposts?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I've seen quite alot of fencing put up by contractors for the EA National Capital Programme Management Service on flood defence schemes and I wouldn't have paid for any of it! On one "award winning" scheme (over £5 million) the fencing contractor hadn't even tied off the wire ends right round the so called strainer posts, just stapled the wife on in 2 places! This was supposed to be permanent fencing in deere country.

 

[Mf6260]

I find getting the posts in on my own fine, it's the netting that can be an arse, some days it goes perfect, other days I get one slip up and that's the day focked. Telegraph poles are pissing me off all of a sudden, the customer has bought them off the BT lads direct, utter sh!t, I'm not lying when I say there was one in the heap dated 1908, it had focking everything nailed to it. I hate stripping and pointing them, tin tacks, nails, staples, Earth wires all over them, blunt the chainsaw, not to mention the bloody climbing pegs on them. The creosote sawdust burns my lips too. Does anyone know of a sawmill that churns out half decent creosote strainers and gateposts?

I also hate the things I think they look rubbish to start with and your saving no money even if you get them for free when you take into account chopping, pointing,sharpening chainsaw and removing all the stuff stuck to them

 

[stugordon321]

I've tried various ways of digging holes. Can't get on with hand held augers as they only need to hit stone & then they try spinning the operator, never used those petrol drivers but had heard they can be harsh on the posts etc. if I was paid enough to do every post by hand I would as you got no excuse for p:sseed posts etc only most biggish jobs need posts knocked in quick as possible whereas digging by hand takes 15 to 30 mins or so depending on the ground to dig. I must say it's pleasing to look back after a good days work doing post & rail by hand when you can look back & say your impressed by how good the fence looks. Most Poeple think post & rail is easy to put up but I would disagree. To get it looking good takes effort due to every bit of the fence being on show so any p:ssed posts or dodgy rails can be seen by everyone that sees the fence. Although most field fences don't need to be dead true & straight to the same degree.
After looking at various new & used post drivers I can't see any reason for sh:t fencing as the big drivers are hydraulic everything so it's all about setting the driver up level etc. due to size of my little tractor I will have to make do with a smaller driver without all the frills & extras but I'm sure it will speed the job up & so long as I check the level of the posts as they go in the ground then they should all go in level & true. Then if I get to the point of getting bigger better machinery then I can do more agri fencing but I couldn't justify the cost etc as it would sit idle most of the time.
I've asked this before but know-one knew the make etc but does anyone know the makers name that make PTO powered post drivers?? Only this would make my life easier as wouldn't need to worry about tapping I to tractors hydraulics or the weight of the bigger drivers. All I want is something that does the job (albeit slower than big heavy kit) & knocks posts in level & true. Surely they still make something as I remember my grandad having a old rusty yellow one that worked off the PTO. Roscoe put a photo up of the same one but no one seemed to know the makers name etc. any help please lads as really need to get one sorted ASAP. Looking at the Flemming driver designed for compact tractors it just looks to small & not really up to the job, I guess it would be fine doing the odd post hear & there. Has anyone used these small drivers?? If so how do they perform on hard ground etc??
Thanks Stu

 

[stugordon321]

Since going on my own I've noticed how I can be critical of new fencing work, on the other hand I will say when I see good work as well. The amount of wire fencing I see where the wire is stapled without being tied off, wires not being tensioned or just shoddy workmanship. As I say I will be the first to say if the jobs done well.
I agree with brynseiri, by the time you've de-nailed & cleaned up telly graph polls & cut the points etc the customer may as well of paid for some decent new posts. They look crap anyway unless it's a gate post. My parents had some put in 40 odd years ago when they had the house built. I pulled what was left of the fence down a few weeks back & was surprised by how strong they were after all that time. The first 2ft had rotted where it was in ground but the 4ft out of the ground was still ok. They were knocked in by the old yellow driver I ask about in my last post. My way of thinking is if that driver could knock those polls in then it should be fine with normal fence posts etc even if it's a old machine. If anyone can help me find out who made them & if they still make PTO powered drivers I would be well grateful as I would like to look at one to see if I think it would be up to the job.
Thanks Stu

 

[brynseiri]

3 of the telegraph posts I mentioned are hollow, as they came straight from the job to the farm they weren't graded, so that's £60 cash on the fire. Some of the newer ones I can chamfer tidy as they are tight, but some are starting to rot in the middle, false economy IMO. Electric poles are the best, little to no clutter, fatter posts, my ideal choice for gateposts.

 

[S J H]

@brynseiri

Dorset fencing supplies sell them cut and pointed.

 

[Mf6260]

3 of the telegraph posts I mentioned are hollow, as they came straight from the job to the farm they weren't graded, so that's £60 cash on the fire. Some of the newer ones I can chamfer tidy as they are tight, but some are starting to rot in the middle, false economy IMO. Electric poles are the best, little to no clutter, fatter posts, my ideal choice for gateposts.

I also hate when people say I've got my own post or can u use these old ones. Thats about the time I walk away from the job and say sorry it's not for me

 

[tepapa]

There was a PTO post driver on eBay the other day, may have finished by now, first I've ever seen

 

[tepapa]

@brynseiri

Dorset fencing supplies sell them cut and pointed.

Fence n forget would be closer, pointed utility poles or creo strainers