How to Save Money When Installing A Fence

As a homeowner, when you are installing something new like a fence or conducting renovations you want to save as much money as possible, right? You’ll want to use the best products you can while saving as much money and still having a shiny new fence. There are a lot of things you can take into consideration when you are installing a fence so you can save money. The first thing most homeowners will say is the most expensive is the materials, and there is no way around that. However, you can save money on materials and still use high-quality ones. 

Materials

When you are shopping for materials you want to keep in mind the location of where you’re shopping and who you are shopping for. For instance, some areas may be more expensive than others and this is just how building materials suppliers work. Look in different areas even if you have to drive a little way out of town because you might save yourself some big bucks. Another thing that is important is whether or not your supplier is a third-party seller and a mill direct. If they are a third-party seller this means they bought their materials from a middleman who marked up the price, which means they markup the price to you too. If you buy from a supplier like us who gets their products directly from the mill, materials will be listed at a cheaper price. 

Lower Grade – A lower grade material will be more likely to have knots and holes and probably a higher waste factor meaning some of the pickets might not be usable. 

Higher Grade – A higher grade material will be much better quality with little waste and fewer knots and no holes. 

The grade of your material is very important. You want to think about whether or not you would rather spend the money upfront and get a higher-grade material or if you would rather spend less and possibly need to buy more material because of your waste factor. 

Labor

The next thing you can consider is the labor costs to install your fence. Most styles of fencing like privacy split rail, and post and dowel can be installed yourself with little to no help. If you are comfortable installing the fence yourself, you may be able to save hundreds to thousands in labor costs. Of course, don’t do this unless you are 100% confident that you can install your fence correctly and that you have all the right tools. Installing it incorrectly could cause your fence to be damaged not as long-lasting. If you do use a contractor make sure they are able to give you a set amount of time that it would take to install your fence. This way you can plan for the extra costs. If you aren’t comfortable installing your fence yourself, but you can paint and stain yourself – go for it. Just by doing part of the work you can save hours of labor costs when going through a company. 

Additions

There are many ways you can enhance the look of your fence through lighting, post caps, planter boxes, landscaping, and so on. There are alternative ways to add these things without the high costs. You can do the landscaping yourself, build your planters boxes out of waste or left-over material, and add posts caps and lighting down the roads once you have money saved. An important thing to remember is that if you need to install your fence in parts rather than all at once, you can! Take the time to do your fence the way you want and the way your money allows. 

For more information on products or building a fence on a budget give us a call today and we can walk you through the steps and give you honest and transparent pricing!