# Best "cheap fence" for 1 acre yard



## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Chicken wire, etc. stapled to a fence rail is not going to do a lot for keeping dogs in. They will simply go under it. You'll have to (at the least) extend that below grade so they can't dig it out. More digging involved now.

The internet can't tell you the cheapest place for building materials. Wood and materials have a very different price in Manhattan than they do in rural Oregon.

From what I've seen (using pricing from Menards), the posts for a split rail fence will cost more than doing a standard fence and putting the pickets every-other (so not solid, but a 4" picket, then a 4" opening, then a 4" picket, etc) attached to treated 2x4.


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## TarheelTerp (Jan 6, 2009)

I have a 60' x 60' area for the dogs... it's right off the deck and easy in/out.
The rest of the property has NO fencing at all aside from some strategically placed trees...
and despite what Robert Frost has to say on the topic it's working out just fine.

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, 
And spills the upper boulders in the sun; 
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. 
The work of hunters is another thing: 
I have come after them and made repair 
Where they have left not one stone on a stone, 
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, 
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, 
No one has seen them made or heard them made, 
But at spring mending-time we find them there. 
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; 
And on a day we meet to walk the line 
And set the wall between us once again. 
We keep the wall between us as we go. 
To each the boulders that have fallen to each. 
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls 
We have to use a spell to make them balance: 
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' 
We wear our fingers rough with handling them. 
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, 
One on a side. It comes to little more: 
There where it is we do not need the wall: 
He is all pine and I am apple orchard. 
My apple trees will never get across 
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. 
*He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.' *

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder 
If I could put a notion in his head: 
'_Why_ do they make good neighbors? 
Isn't it Where there are cows? 
But here there are no cows. 
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know 
What I was walling in or walling out, 
And to whom I was like to give offense. 
Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.' 
I could say 'Elves' to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather 
He said it for himself. I see him there 
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top 
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. 
He moves in darkness as it seems to me, 
Not of woods only and the shade of trees. 
He will not go behind his father's saying, 
And he likes having thought of it so well 
He says again, *'Good fences make good neighbors.'*


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## johnnyboy (Oct 8, 2007)

How about an invisible fence?


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## cibula11 (Jan 6, 2007)

cbarr81 said:


> Hey folks,
> 
> New user here, great forum!
> 
> ...


Have you thought of building a traditional fence yourself? You could build a 4ft high fence, and space the pickets every other. When I built my fence 4 yrs ago, a six ft. dog eared picket was right around $1. They were six inches wide, so for a 100' run, you'd need 100 pickets (remember spaced out every six inches), costing you a bit more than $100. Then, if you add the cost of 4x4 posts in every 8 feet (12 total)at about $6.50 a post...you're looking at about: 

$100 dog-eared picket
$ 80 for the posts

Now, assuming your yard is an entire acre and fairly square, needing a fence on ALL 4 sides....you'd be looking at approx. 800-1000 ft for the perimeter, taking your cost of the 100 ft and multiplying it by 8-10...making your total somewhere between $1,800-2,500 plus labor, tool rental, and screws, etc. I honestly don't think a max budget of $3000 would be that far off. My guess you'd spend close to that with a split rail fence and have far more issues afterwards.


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## cbarr81 (Mar 21, 2012)

Wow, thank you for such great help!


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## creeper (Mar 11, 2011)

TarheelTerp said:


> I have a 60' x 60' area for the dogs... it's right off the deck and easy in/out.
> The rest of the property has NO fencing at all aside from some strategically placed trees...
> and despite what Robert Frost has to say on the topic it's working out just fine.
> 
> ...


 
I imagine, like yourself, that the clever and insightful Frost would have always known where to draw the line with people who seek to cross boundries. 

Sorry for the highjack...(English Lit..101)


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## creeper (Mar 11, 2011)

Or you can sharpen your elbows on people who want want to tear down your fence


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## creeper (Mar 11, 2011)

Thank-you anonymous post remover


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## creeper (Mar 11, 2011)

Thanks mods


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