Submitted 2 months ago by ericbomb@lemmy.world to [deleted]
New home owner who has never had to hire a contractor before. Want to have chain link fence replaced and want to have put in white vinyl fence to match connected town home.
It is just a 40 foot length I need replaced and will need to have one gate. As I get quotes, what kind of price should I expect to pay? What’s considered fair and what’s considered a rip off?
Get multiple quotes and compare them. The cost will depend on where you are, what the conditions are like, how many jobs are being done by the supplier, etc.
Several quotes will quickly tell you who is charging too much and who is not charging enough.
You can also go to the hardware store and source the materials yourself and put it up on the weekend. Plenty of YouTube video experts to learn from.
There’s specialty equipment needed to stretch chainlink into position.
The chain link is coming down.
Get multiple quotes and compare them.
And don’t go with the cheapest one. I did that. The guy is almost done. Almost nothing about the fence meets what I would consider professional standards. I deeply regret hiring this guy.
I don’t have a number for you, but get 2-3 quotes. Labor is expensive, it’s going to be your main cost here, not materials.
Basically every quote I have gotten for anything has been a much higher number than I would have liked by a good margin. Been doing more and more stuff myself. A fence replacement is very much so in the realm of something you can do yourself if you are getting sticker shock at your quotes.
Holy shit. Is late stage capitalism regressing?!?
The more unaffordable services are, the more we DIY, the more we become self sufficient, the less we need to buy, the more companies have to do to gain our business, the litter prices get, the lazier we get, the oh fuck, we’re back where we started. Nevermind.
From what I have seen, it’s everyone going to college and looking for white collar, not blue collar jobs. There is a labor shortage in the construction/contracting industry that is leading to them raising prices. It’s also why getting a job in the trades is pretty solid right now.
Labor costs are insane. I know these laborers aren’t getting paid $200 an hour, but that’s what I get charged for them.
That’s a pretty small job. You may get outrageous quotes because a contractor may not want to be bothered.
Materials according to the Home Depot website:
5 8ft long vinyl fence panels 6ft high at $109 each = $545 6 8ft high vinyl fence posts at $39 each = $234 6 fence posts caps at $4 each =$24 6 bags fast setting concrete at $7 each =$42 Total $845 in materials Guessing 8hrs labor at $30/hr =$240 I’d estimate around $1,100 or so. Adjust for sales tax and labor costs in your area.
You would need at least twice that amount of concrete unless you are digging an undersized hole. 6 bags would be adequate for a chain-link with 6" holes, you want 8" holes for 5x5 posts.
To do 8ft high fences, you need 12ft posts. 8ft posts are for a 5ft high fence. Also 8ft high fences usually have 6ft wide panels, so they would need 7 panels. So closer to $1,900 in just vinyl.
You’re not going to find a legitimate business anywhere in the country that only charges $30 an hour for labor. That’s probably what they pay their laborer, but they also have benefits to account for, insurance, gas, machinery, the list is endless. Plan on $100-$600 an hour depending on where you are.
I’m assuming you’re in the US, look up the prices for vinyl fence on home Depot or Lowe’s website. They have pre build items for that type of fence. I would 2-2.5x your material estimate to account for labor, markup, and misc items that are needed. Removal and haul away of a chain link depends on what it looks like now. All in I would guess $4-5k if there isn’t much custom work.
Oof yeah if it is coming out to 4k+ then I probably am gonna be a DIYer.
Installing a fence isn’t that difficult and you can probably rent a lot of the tools you need from somewhere like Home Depot.
Can’t promise you much but…
You could maaaaybe look at your State’s Department of Transportation (So like TXDoT for Texas) and find their Bid Tabulations, get an average for 8’ Wooden Fence Repair or 8’ Fence Installation for this quarter, put it in a spreadsheet and multiply it by values between 1.0 and 2.0 (so 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc) and that can be your controlling range for price escalation for a private homeowner instead of a mass purchaser. It should be per linear foot.
You multiply those values by your total linear feet to get a total estimate and see if the quotes you get from installers in your area that are within that range, and where they are within it. Look up the companies that you can get quotes from and their reputation if any, and try to pick someone in the median of your range.
If your local municipal entity, city or county etc, has worked with them, that would be phenomenal but those often don’t do private homeowners for clients.
Best of luck.
R.H.
Labour and materials depends on your country and location. Do you need to pay a ~bribe~ permit to local government as well? Will the neighbour on the other side pay half? Does it need to be painted?
Get a few quotes, ask for references of other fences they’ve built, and compare locally.
If it’s flat, level ground, then $30 per foot for wood or hog panels. Add money if brush needs to be cut, ground leveled, or you want something like vinyl, cedar, or painted wood.
Wwwbdd@lemmy.world 2 months ago
My time to shine. I own a company that does fences, we specialize in custom vinyl. Obviously this varies by region, but I’ll price vinyl $95-130/ft, and $300 per gate. Depending on if I liked you, what I knew about the soil, travel time to your job, I’d probably come in around $5300, installed
It might sound insane, but my 4 man crew costs about $1100/day to keep on the road. 40’ in bad conditions is 2 days minimum, can easily spill into 3. My materials would be around $1500, so worst case I’m netting in $500 for 3 days of work, which is damn near unsustainable considering the amount of machinery I’ve got in play
ericbomb@lemmy.world 2 months ago
What I am learning is that I am not in the correct tax bracket to pay for contractors unless messing up means the house burning down. So probably gonna be DIY this one.
Wwwbdd@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The overhead running a legit business is unreal.
My general advice is don’t use post mix concrete, use regular stone mix and backfill immediately. The backfilled dirt will hold it in place and slow the cure, giving you hours to go back and tweak as you go. That rapid post makes no sense, there’s no urgency in the setting phase, that’s the opposite of what you want.
And remember, if you do a good job it can last 20+ years, so don’t be lazy and take a shortcut because it’s “good enough”. You’re better spending $300 on a rental machine to dig the holes than to set a post that isn’t deep enough. I’m in Canada where frost can be hell, my posts go 4’ down and usually 5 bags concrete per post, then another 3 bags down the post once it’s all assembled. Your 40’ fence I could easily put in 50 bags. Don’t base your shopping list on that, but know that if you care about longevity it takes patience and hard work, like anything else in life