Do fences really cost this much? What am I actually paying for?

What the price is made of

Pickets and panels are the part you see, so that is where people expect the money to be. It is not. Every post has to be dug, set in concrete, and lined up so the top runs straight. Then the rails go on, then the pickets, then the gates get hung and adjusted until they latch clean. The labor to do that right, all the way down the line, is the bulk of any fence bill.

What moves the number

Six things, mostly:

• The material. Chain link, wood, vinyl, and aluminum are all priced differently.
• The height. A 6 foot privacy fence uses more material and heavier posts than a 4 foot picket fence.
• The footage. More feet means more posts and more holes.
• Gates. Every gate is extra hardware and extra time to hang right. A double drive gate is more than a walk gate.
• The ground. Rock, roots, and slope slow the digging down, and there is plenty of rock around Crossville.
• Tear-out. Pulling an old fence and hauling it off is its own job.

Why we do not price it over the phone

Two yards with the same footage can be very different jobs once we see the grade and what is under the grass. We come out, measure it, and write it up. Then you have a real number instead of a guess, and you can compare it against anyone else's line by line.