Fence question please

[Frisco Girl]

You can have two nice sides if you box in your posts. It doesn't cost a whole lot extra and makes the fence look so much nicer. Then you can have the smooth side out for the safety reason like Sticky said , making it harder for someone to climb over - and the inside will still look nice from the boxed posts.

[Geck]

Originally Posted by friscomatt

I'm SO glad I don't share a fence with a neighbor. That was one of my show stopper issues when I was house shopping.

Yup. I agree, this was a "deal breaker" when we were looking for a home. If it shared a fence i couldn't care if it was the Taj Mahal we wern't buying it. Too many horror stories of d@*k Head neighbors who won't, can't or just plain refuse to share in the cost of replacing or repairing a fence.

[sundae]

We didn't always share a fence with our neighbor. A few years back, our neighbor decided to attach on to our fence, without so much as asking or telling us. Rude!

When we replaced our fence, we didn't expect them to help with the cost of that portion.

[ThisCharmingMan]

Maybe I am wrong, I thought on a common fence, both sides come to a mutual agreement or whoever decides to replace it foots the costs and decides what type of fence and who gets the good side.

Is that not correct?

[Drivin'tooFast]

Originally Posted by Frisco Girl

You can have two nice sides if you box in your posts. It doesn't cost a whole lot extra and makes the fence look so much nicer. Then you can have the smooth side out for the safety reason like Sticky said , making it harder for someone to climb over - and the inside will still look nice from the boxed posts.

I have not seen one fence in Frisco that is a security fence. Unless you were trying to keep out the famous wheel chair theives. Any kid could easily get over any 6' or 8' fence if they wanted to get over it. So the only folks it is keeping out are the lazy and disabled theives.

[Mom About Town]

Our shared sides have board-on-board on both sides, so they both look good. I have had a shared fence for the past 10 years and never had a problem. With our first house, we paid the upgrade 8', board on board for the entire fence and then just paid to have it stained when we thought it needed it (not the sides facing someone else's yard). I held up great for 10 years so we didn't have to ever replace it, but I think that if I had a neighbor who didn't want to work out something on cost I would just pay for it and move on. Not worth having bad relationship with neighbors.

[SUNSHINE315]

Chain link it is!

[PugLover]

Just built 6 inside the line....I own it!

[Frisco Girl]

Originally Posted by Drivin'tooFast

I have not seen one fence in Frisco that is a security fence. Unless you were trying to keep out the famous wheel chair theives. Any kid could easily get over any 6' or 8' fence if they wanted to get over it. So the only folks it is keeping out are the lazy and disabled theives.

You're right that anyone could get over any fence if they wanted to badly enough but a thief will usually take the path of least resistance unless they are targeting a specific home. No sense making it easier for them.

Do you have a security system? Why have a security system when a thief can disable it. Do you lock your doors and windows? Why lock your doors and windows when a thief can jimmy the lock or break the window anyway?

The fact is any security measures we take can fail depending on how badly the thief wants in, but that doesn't stop most of us from taking measures to make it more difficult for them.

[Sticky Davis]

Originally Posted by Frisco Girl

You're right that anyone could get over any fence if they wanted to badly enough but a thief will usually take the path of least resistance unless they are targeting a specific home. No sense making it easier for them.

+1. After getting robbed in a home in another city - the police came by our house and gave us some tips. Some of the simplest ones is since no security alarm will stop a thief - the best deterrent is just to buy security signs for both the front and back of your home (metal sign on a stake.) When burglers in prison are asked which houses they chose - almost all of them said they skipped houses with alarm signs, it's just easier to go a few doors down to another house than to take the time to disarm a security system.

Another tip the Police had us do was put a small "beware of dog" sign near our back gate. The experienced thieves will next look over the fence to see where the dog is so they can decide whether the dog is likely inside or outside - and how big or dangerous. If you leave a BIG water dish visible on your back patio - the bigger the better - (fill it with fresh water every day or two while you're watering the plants) the burgler will assume the sign is not just an old sign from the previous owner and that the "BIG dog" is somewhere inside the house. Again they'll move on to the next home instead.

The same with locked gates - or fences that are smooth and not as wasy to climb from the outside. BTW, I don't own a pool, but don't some HOA's require the smooth side out on fences around pools to prevent kids from easily climbing over fences and possibly drowning?

Good idea about boxed fences FG. We only boxed in one side of our fence along our driveway - it looks so much nicer to arriving guests, plus we "boxed in" both sides of our gates so they're pretty on both sides (I don't like ugly cross slats on fence gates - they remind me of barn doors) - and I added iron decorative inserts on both sides as well. Just got another compliment on that from a visitor yesterday.