Where do you look to find a fence installer? Who are you looking for?
Are you paying for a fence contractor, or hiring off Craigslist, or …?
If you use a fence contractor how much do you usually pay for the install? If you are hiring labor off Craigslist, how was the quality of your install?
I’m trying to wrap my head around the cost of installing one of these so I can get the capex line item right on a park we are just starting due diligence on. Since the material is so cheap for these it seems like the main cost will be install labor.
Call the local fence builders, contractors, handy men. They can all build a fence, it’s pretty simple.
Tell them what you want and get some bids. Install cost is based on how big the fence is.
I got 2 quotes from local fence companies. Just searched for them on Google and looked for someone with decent reviews. Best quote I received was $3k for approx 160 linear feet of 3 rail vinyl, so about $19/foot. I felt pretty good about this considering the competitor was more than double this amount. Hope that helps.
Cost ranges from $10 to $20 per linear foot based on the market your are in because it’s almost all labor cost.
Here are a couple tips we have learned over the years in installing this fencing:
You have to get the utilities marked before you do anything. There is a lot of fiber-optic cable running down the frontage of most American roads and if you hit it the cost will put you out of business ($1 million plus). And that does not include water, sewer, gas, regular telephone cable, cable television, etc. Call Dig Test or whatever your state utilizes. The pro fence guys know this, but if you do it yourself and miss this step you may be doomed.
What separates the good from the bad white vinyl fences is having the slats be level throughout. The support members must be longer or shorter based on the topography with the rails bubble-level perfect. If you dig the holes the same depth and use the same vertical members throughout, the rails will go up and down and the visual effect is not good. (it will look like a white vinyl roller coaster).
Screw the rails into the vertical members or they will fall out a lot between wind and human abuse.
Make sure you know your property line and don’t guess. If you don’t know it, get a surveyor to mark it. Building a fence outside of your boundary will mean building it twice and you’ll feel pretty stupid.
In many place, you have to get a permit to build a fence – so do it. And you need one to make sure that you have not violated any visibility radius laws (where the fence blocks visibility to drivers).
White vinyl fence is a great asset to any mobile home park and we’re huge fans.
Agree with everything @frankrolfe said. In 2008, we paid $4/lf in Minnesota for direct bury (no concrete), by a professional installer from CL. I would also suggest you bury the vertical posts so the bottom rail has the same gap to the ground as the gap between the next two upper rails. If the fence posts get buried too shallow (making the overall fence sit higher) in areas where you get frost, the fence posts could get pushed up from the ground from the frost. We also did about 300lf of 6’ solid white vinyl fence for $8/lf in Oregon.