How our new fence is INDESTRUCTIBLE!

If you've ever had your garden fence destroyed by strong winds, this video is for you! After years of dealing with wobbly panels and costly repairs, we finally built a storm-proof fence with the help of my brilliant brother-in-law. I’ll show you the techniques he used to make this fence rock solid, from stronger posts to clever reinforcement that distributes wind pressure. If you’re planning a fence upgrade, this might give you some ideas!

How our new fence is INDESTRUCTIBLE!



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

How do you make a fence that doesn't get blown apart by a couple of light storms? That is, uh, something that was quite on our minds.

As you've seen in the last video, our fence was just made up of fence panels and wooden posts, and the way they were put together over time meant that they fell apart. Some of these fence panels have been up for probably 15 years, so they were here when we moved in...

Casper! Out!

God, Casper! See, Casper's taking full advantage of the fence situation.

Out! Out! Good boy!

But some of the other panels we had put up, like literally four years ago, are completely blown out.

We spent a lot of money on having those installed.

It is a tricky situation because the wind where we live—it's kind of angled so that the wind goes straight across the garden. It takes the full force on those fence panels. They turn into big sailing ship sails, just catch the air, and then the posts pivot and swing backwards and forwards. Over time, in some cases, 10 to 15 years, in others, four years.

And as you'd imagine, we're pretty sick of having to pay for these panels to be put up every time. It can't take one more storm.

As I mentioned in the last video, the only three panels that have stood the test of time were the ones that were re-put-up—refitted—by my brother-in-law. You can see them in the background there. They were falling down, and now they are absolutely rock solid because of the way that he set them into the ground in concrete.

So when it came to dealing with the fence situation, there was only one person we could, uh, reach out to.

My brilliant brother-in-law Steve has now built this. This is going to stand the test of time, and I've just wanted to share some of the techniques he uses to make sure this fence doesn't fall down after a few storms.

I absolutely love how he's doing this.

So basically, instead of having a 3-inch post like before, we've got a 4-inch square post.

I—I don't use inches. The only time I use inches is when... is when my brilliant brother-in-law comes and fixes our house.

And then we've got 10 feet between each post, and underneath, there's a gravel board to raise the feather-edge fence panels from the ground.

And then behind that, we have three of these, uh, struts.

He said it's a bit like—it is a bit like stud work, um, but this is absolutely rock solid, especially the way he's screwed it into both these homemade... I don't know what you'd call them. It's like a rest. So that's really solid. And he put the beams into the rest and into the post as well.

So instead of the storm hitting the fence panel and just blowing the panel in, the wind will have to kind of take this, and this will take the full force of the wind that comes across the garden.

And it spreads the force onto the posts instead of before—having a panel that just kind of flips in and out, in and out, and then it kind of cantilevers or pivots the post backwards and forwards and just works them out of the ground, even though they're in concrete.

This—this is absolutely rock solid. You can climb on it. They're like monkey bars.

Another ingenious feature is this down here in between the gravel boards.

I've got another example here. We've got an extra strut not only to take the weight of the lower beam and to stop that flexing but also to stop the gravel boards from warping over time.

So I guess this board at the bottom also takes some load or some of the force so that the fence doesn't flex backwards and forwards with 50 mph winds headed this way.

The posts are about 9 feet apart, so we've got 10 feet that are being cut down to size.

And also, the other thing he had to contend with was years and years and years of other posts put into the ground.

Obviously, you can't put a post into the ground if there's a pile of concrete there, and instead of having to dig them out, they've been spaced so that they avoid the concrete that's in the ground already.

And then the finishing touch, which I absolutely love, are these feather-edged boards.

Each one of these has been nailed individually—whoa!

Each one of these boards has been nailed individually, and he's even made, like, a—a jig. I don't know what you'd call it, but like a spacer to nail the boards, to space them exactly so that over time, they won't warp and, you know, just have big gaps in the fence.

These, hopefully, are going to stay.

The garden, obviously, isn't level, so it tapers down.

I don't know if you can see it on camera, but they curve down to follow the—the drop in the garden all the way down to the bottom of the patio here.

My son has been helping out, which has been absolutely fantastic.

And they've been on such a roll because of my brilliant brother-in-law's system for getting these fences up.

He's seen so many fences over time just blow out and fall apart, and every part of this design designs out some of the problems that he's seen from the fences that he's had to repair and replace over time.

They've managed to do this over two days.

We're in the final half-day now, just to finish up to here.

Again, I mean, we decided to go up to the—the—the fence posts are absolutely, uh, staying the test of time.

It just felt wrong to take out.

They're the only three fence panels that have stood up.

I think we're going to go all the way later this year.

So for now, we've decided to just bring the fence up to—up to here.

And then the new design will just join onto this for now, temporarily.

And then in the spring, we'll probably just get the final two—two sets of 10 feet up to the back of the garden.

We've not wanted to go for concrete posts.

I mentioned that on the—on the last video.

I'll show you the problem with the concrete posts.

Firstly, they look like a municipal detention center.

I absolutely love—I mean, look at it! It just—it just—it's just fantastic.

I love the fact that it's just wood against nature, even though that hasn't served us well over the last 10... 10 years.

It... it just looks great.

It looks so much better than these things.

And the thing with the—the concrete posts is that they do rot over time.

They do...

I've got an example here.

The concrete posts aren't infallible either, because the—I mean, these do crumble, and they start to fall apart anyway.

So there's all that expense, and they're more expensive as well.

And the fence panels still blow in, so you've still got to replace the panels over time.

Look... look at that one.

And it's really difficult to get to those ones because they're behind this tree.

I think this tree is, uh, probably not going to make it through 2025.

But this absolutely fills our garden, and it's just so big and inappropriate to have on the edge of the garden.

It goes all over the neighbour's garden when it's in leaf.

It just blocks everything out.

I think we're going to be really pleased to see this taken back, and, uh, I think we'll probably have to do that in the spring.

My brilliant brother-in-law Steve and my son have been out.

You can see how cold it is from the frost.

It's a hard frost...

It's the coldest day of the last year, even though we're into the new year.

He had to dig out each one of these posts in rock solid frozen conditions—minus five!

It's minus five overnight!

So you can imagine how much of a job it is to put in every single one of these posts.

I am calling this a Dad Delivers Success!

Uh, I hope something here might help or inspire you for your garden fencing.

And thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button.

It really helps me to keep this channel going, so thank you!

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