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This Fence Contractor Was Thrown off the Job!

Late one night while I was relaxing with my laptop, searching some blogs, my cell phone rang. It was a frantic consumer who had hired what he thought was a reputable fence contractor, the contractor was referred to him by his pool contractor. The customer also stated that he had received two other estimates before just deciding to use the one the pool contractor had recommended. This customer was desperate and requested I come over the next day, because they had fired the fence contractor and needed someone right away as the pool had already been started. Here are a few photo’s of what I saw when I got there:

Notice how straight it is! Only 2 Rails!

The pickets were already warping! Look at this Gate!

After I gained my composure and picked my jaw up off the ground, I asked the customer exactly what they expected from me. They informed me that they had already given the fence contractor (I will not name who it is) a down payment equal to 50%. They were ready to accept that they may not get it back and wanted us to fix it trying to use as much of the material that was already there, and at a cost that hopefully wasn’t out of range. My initial reaction was that we would need to completely tear down the old fence because it was horribly built. The practice of only using two rails (the horizontal 2X4’s) had caused the pickets to warp at the top and bottom and the fence had only been up for a day or two. The posts were all set at different heights, and most of it was not even straight!

After further discussion , we came up with a plan that we thought would help get the consumer out of this jam, and presented it to them. The customer didn’t hesitate to agree with our proposal, and we began work within a couple of days. I took some pictures of the project again after we had rebuilt most of the fence:

We tried to use as many of the posts that were already installed as we possibly could and still have a fence we could put our name on. This resulted in cutting the tops off to get the heights right, the customer still wanted something on top of the posts and opted for the copper tops. They also opted for the “cap and rail” system which came out very nice. As you should notice, the landscaping, and the pool work were 1st class, so we tried very hard to get the fence to make it all look even better. This was not easy with what we were working with. The customers were very happy.

For more reading on this subject, check out Garden Structure’s blog on this same subject here. That’s all for now, keep checking back.