How to Build a Fence on the Gulf Coast: Week 1

A fence is mostly a planning project. Setting posts and hanging pickets is a weekend or two of work; the week before it decides whether that work holds up through a hurricane season or comes apart at the first blow. Here is what to settle before anyone digs.

Start the locate request on day one

Call 811, dial (800) 227-6477, or file at ms811.org. Locate requests are free. Mississippi asks for three to ten working days' notice before you dig, and operators have three working days from the ticket to mark their lines or tell you they have nothing in the area. Legal holidays don't count, so a ticket filed on Friday can push your start into the following week. That wait is why this goes first: everything else on this list fits inside it.

Fence posts run deeper than a foot, so the exemption for shallow hand digging on your own property doesn't cover a fence line. Operators mark the facilities they own — electric, gas, water, sewer, communications. They do not mark irrigation lines, landscape lighting, or the feed you ran to a shed years ago. If you don't know where those run, keep your holes away from them or have someone trace them before you dig.

Before the crew arrives, mark your proposed line in white, paint or flags. White is the standard color for proposed excavation, and it tells each locator where to look instead of the whole backyard.

Find out what your city wants before you buy anything

Fence rules are local and they are not the same from city to city. An ordinance can set a height limit that changes by yard — front, side, street-facing corner — require the finished side facing out, set a minimum distance from the property line, and create sight triangles on corner lots that you are not allowed to block. Some cities require a permit above a certain height; others require none at all. A fence on a lot in a flood zone can face rules of its own.

One phone call handles it. Ask the building department five questions: what height is allowed in this yard, does the finished side have to face out, is there a setback from the property line, does this project need a permit, and is my address in a flood zone. Contact details for every city and county office on the Coast are in our city code office directory.

If your subdivision has deed restrictions, read them first. They are often stricter than the city, and the city will not enforce them for you.

Locate the property line before you locate the posts

Where you stop mowing is not a property line. Iron pins are set at lot corners, often a foot or more below grade, and often capped with the surveyor's name. A metal detector can find one that is there. What it cannot do is tell you the pin is undisturbed, that it marks the corner rather than something else, or where your line runs if a pin was never set or is gone.

If the pins are missing, or your neighbor reads the line differently than you do, pay for a boundary survey. A survey costs less than moving a fence, and far less than a disagreement with someone you will live beside for the next twenty years. Once the line is settled and if the fence runs close to it, put the agreement in writing and keep it.

Measure the run and plan the gates

Borrow a 100-foot tape rather than walking a 25-footer over and over; short tapes compound small errors into a bad material order. Measure each straight run separately, add them, then subtract the width of every gate.

Gate openings need heavier framing than the rest of the fence — typically 6x6 posts and hinges rated for the weight of the gate, not the same hardware as a picket panel. Then add about 10% to your picket, rail and post count for bad boards and bad cuts. On a long run, buy the pickets from one batch so the color matches.

Decide how the fence handles the slope

Two options, and you pick before you order.

Stepping keeps each panel level and lets the fence jump down the hill in steps. It suits pre-built panels and goes faster, but it leaves triangular gaps at the bottom — a problem if the fence is there to hold a small dog.

Racking keeps the pickets plumb and runs the rails parallel to the ground, so the top follows the contour. It looks better on a slope and closes the bottom gaps, but it means stick-building on site, one picket at a time.

Build for wind, salt and treated lumber

Post depth is where coastal fences fail. A common rule of thumb is one-third of the above-ground height in the ground — 24 inches for a 6-foot fence — in a hole about three times the post's width, backfilled with concrete. Treat that as a starting point, not a code number. Along the Coast, footing depth is a wind-load question, and your building department may require a specific depth or a stamped design for the height you are building. Ask while you are asking about the permit.

Fasteners decide how the fence ages. Use hot-dipped galvanized or stainless — not electro-galvanized, and not plain nails. Modern treated lumber is corrosive to standard fasteners and salt air finishes the job; the black streaks that show up on a new fence within a season are the hardware rusting from the inside. Hinges, hangers and gate hardware need the same rating as the nails. Let new treated lumber dry out before you stain it, or the finish will fail.

Get quotes you can compare

Two or three written quotes, each describing the same fence, post spacing, gate count and hardware. Before you sign, verify the contractor's license against the MSBOC database and search the directory by trade and city to see who works in your area. Our guide to hiring a contractor safely covers what to ask beyond the price.

Three questions worth putting to each bidder: will you file the locate request in your company's name, and will you give me the ticket number; who pulls the fence permit; and can you send a certificate of insurance with the limits shown. A contractor who can't answer the first one is telling you something.