Back Boundary
The back fence if you can even call it one was really just some sheets of corrugated iron on the verge of collapse. So it was really a no brainer to pull this down and replace with ColorBond fencing. One of the neighbours out the back dished out some verbal abuse at the builder after the fence was pulled down but calmed down a bit when she found out she was getting a brand new fence fully paid for.
Western Boundary
We are having the garage being built 140mm from the boundary line so originally the builder said the existing fence where the garage was near the boundary had to go. After talking to the neighbour understandably they weren't to keen on removing the existing timber slat fence which was still in pretty good shape.
Luckily our builder agreed with temporarily removing the slats and keeping the posts in place. The timber slats will be replaced afterwards.
After demolishing the old shed out the back it exposed the timber lattice fencing that had been overrun by the neighbours climbing vines. The lattice fence was broken in a couple places due to the weight of the vines and everywhere else was leaning heavily.
The neighbour didn't want to tear down the lattice as this would impact on their beloved vines that looked to have gone outta control. In the end he reluctantly agreed to tear it down and also surprisingly had come around on also removing the vines. However we couldn't agree on the ColorBond fence though as they wanted timber despite us offering to fund the lot. In the end we just said we would build the fence on our land.
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| 2/4/2012 - Use one of these if you have stubborn weeds! |
Eastern Boundary
There was a section of over 9 metres where the was no dividing fence. The neighbour was up till now using that section to store their rubbish bins and so were not too happy when we wanted to build up a new fence for that area. In the end they agreed to one due to privacy and security issues.
Outside the neighbour's carport there is an ugly brick wall that was not in good shape and had some major cracks in the wall. The builder confirmed this showing how easily it wobbled with a gentle push. We notified the neighbour and got their agreement on tearing it down and we offered to rebuild that brick wall at our full cost. Being brick it's going to be expensive!
The biggest surprise was when the builder told us the brick fence in the back half was as bad as the front. It wobbled just as bad. This fence was 23 metres in length was a big problem as I knew the neighbour would not want to tear this down. Alarm bells were ringing on the fencing budget that had already blown out and this was something not budgeted for at all. We paid for an engineer to come in who assessed it as extremely dangerous and irreparable. The wall was only a single skin of bricks and the footings for the wall was not deep or wide enough especially given the sandy soil.
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| Shallow depth of footings. |
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| Mortar in bad shape and cracks throughout. Also bricks didn't interlock with the pillars. |
The meeting with the neighbour didn't go down to well and he blamed the condition of the wall due to our demolition of the fibro house despite the engineer's advice to the contrary. He still wanted to keep the wall because "it looked nice" and seemed to ignore the real danger of the unstable brick wall which was crazy since they had a couple young kids of their own.
After a few days they finally agreed to demolishing the wall and replacing with Colorbond but placed conditions on us funding the lot including the demolition, the re-attachment of their pool gates and clothesline and even the re-plumbing of their water pipes that ran on top of the brick wall to their laundry in the rear! To top it off they wanted a guarantee that everything would be completed within 2 days max.
At that point I was really tempted to take legal action to recover half the costs. But it was really no point as time was costing us money and the builder couldn't continue until this was resolved. They considered the site too dangerous for them to be working there. In the end we paid for the demolition and ColorBond fencing but there was no way we would be paying for any re-attachments of their private belongings to the fence and definitely none of their plumbing works.
New Fencing
Took longer than expected but the new Colorbond fence finally came up. We went with a zig zag profile.
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| 23/4/2012 |
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| 23/4/2012 |
Sorry to hear about the fencing and unpleasant neighbours. Some things most buyers including myself tend to neglect when inspecting the property. On the plus side the fence looks really good, just hope the builders don’t ding it in the construction process. I read our contract with M and they state that if the fence is damage, they are not responsible, something you might want to check. You would think there is enough clearance to avoid hitting anything but they eventually do. I haven’t uploaded the photos yet but the mini digger broke a main branch on the tree in the back yard. If you've seen our backyard there is so much room! So how?
ReplyDeleteSo far our neighbours have been very nice and we haven’t run into any issues yet. Cross fingers.