We have about 75’ of 6’ fence on the S side of the backyard. The original one belonged to the neighbor who had bought the place about 5 years ago and it was there when we moved in nearly 30 yrs ago. It was barely standing and that’s only because i had put in 4x4’s to brace up the rotted posts. One of our trees came down during a storm and took out about 4’ of it. Neighbor asked if I’d pay half his homeowners deductible to get it replaced - i said no because i had patched that rotten ass thing up on my own time and dime and because it didn’t seem right to file a claim on a fence that would have likely fallen over had i not done so. I need a fence (dogs) so i patched up the hole. After a couple weeks, it was clear that he wasn’t going to do anything about it, so i said F it - went to Menards, laid in supplies and put up a new fence about 4" from the old one over one weekend. No permit no survey. 12 8’ 4x4’s sunk 2’ deep, all dug by hand. Don’t know what his deductible is but i guarantee i got it done for less than half of it. He finally got around to having the old one demoed about a month later.
That’s more or less what happened with my one neighbour.
They didn’t feel like spending money on it, they were happy with the rotting fence. I had a kid on the way and a German shepherd/husky puppy. I needed a new fence.
So I just built it. A day after I built it, on my side of the line, they stained their side of it without telling me. I was going to kick up a shit storm about them essentially painting something that was 100% on my property but, whatever. They saved me the hassle of having to stain it myself. They did try to attach a perpendicular fence panel to one of my posts, and I cut it off with a reciprocating saw the next day. We didn’t talk much after that. She died around a year later.
On my backyard was a row of dying cedar hedges but no fence. Again, with the dog I needed something and we also had deer crossing the property through the backyard. The elderly neighbour there also didn’t want to chip in. So I spent all 4 days of an Easter long weekend from sun up to sun down digging up the row of dying cedars, stumps and all, installed chain link and a fast growing hedge in front. I now have a 20’ tall solid wall of greenery separating our properties 
.
I do try to consider the situation though. Realistically some people cant really afford to pay $1K to replace half a side fence. Older people it may mean a lot to them and may actually not really care about having a nice straight fence or any fence at all. So i try to at least consider that as a possibility in some cases. But some people are just cheap self centered assholes. Most homeowners should do the right thing and split the bill if they can.
I thought Barry said 20 man hours. I was thinking likely a crew of three working for a day. 20 crew hours translates into three days which would be a lot of split rain fencing
Could they have just planed the post down?
We had dying cedars (that I planted) between me and the neighbor. I think they were dying because the previous owner put in a pool. All my other cedars are doing fine. My neighbor offered to build the fence at his cost so I told him I would remove the cedars . It was win. Six hours of grunt work to remove the cedars. I think his wife wanted the pool privacy because she gained a lot of weight after having a kid. On the other side I have 60 ft of cedars I planted four feet on my side of the line so my neighbour got at least an extra foot of backyard. He is however a very good neighbour so I don’t care. Now he is dying of esophageal cancer
California Civil Code § 841
(a) Adjoining landowners shall share equally in the responsibility for maintaining the boundaries and monuments between them.
(b)(1) Adjoining landowners are presumed to share an equal benefit from any fence dividing their properties and, unless otherwise agreed to by the parties in a written agreement, shall be presumed to be equally responsible for the reasonable costs of construction, maintenance, or necessary replacement of the fence.
(2) Where a landowner intends to incur costs for a fence described in paragraph (1), the landowner shall give 30 days’ prior written notice to each affected adjoining landowner. The notice shall include notification of the presumption of equal responsibility for the reasonable costs of construction, maintenance, or necessary replacement of the fence. The notice shall include a description of the nature of the problem facing the shared fence, the proposed solution for addressing the problem, the estimated construction or maintenance costs involved to address the problem, the proposed cost sharing approach, and the proposed timeline for getting the problem addressed.
(3) The presumption in paragraph (1) may be overcome by a preponderance of the evidence demonstrating that imposing equal responsibility for the reasonable costs of construction, maintenance, or necessary replacement of the fence would be unjust. In determining whether equal responsibility for the reasonable costs would be unjust, the court shall consider all of the following:
(A) Whether the financial burden to one landowner is substantially disproportionate to the benefit conferred upon that landowner by the fence in question.
(B) Whether the cost of the fence would exceed the difference in the value of the real property before and after its installation.
(C) Whether the financial burden to one landowner would impose an undue financial hardship given that party’s financial circumstances as demonstrated by reasonable proof.
(D) The reasonableness of a particular construction or maintenance project, including all of the following:
(i) The extent to which the costs of the project appear to be unnecessary or excessive.
(ii) The extent to which the costs of the project appear to be the result of the landowner’s personal aesthetic, architectural, or other preferences.
(E) Any other equitable factors appropriate under the circumstances.
(4) Where a party rebuts the presumption in paragraph (1) by a preponderance of the evidence, the court shall, in its discretion, consistent with the party’s circumstances, order either a contribution of less than an equal share for the costs of construction, maintenance, or necessary replacement of the fence, or order no contribution.
(c) For the purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings:
(1) “Landowner” means a private person or entity that lawfully holds any possessory interest in real property, and does not include a city, county, city and county, district, public corporation, or other political subdivision, public body, or public agency.
(2) “Adjoining” means contiguous to or in contact with.
Money was not an issue for this lady. I think she just didn’t give a shit if the fence was rotten, or there at all.
I was comparing labor rates of plumbers to the labor rates of this fence installer. I could have used electricians, service engineering, floor installation, etc. etc. etc. but I chose plumbers as an example.
The point was that ALL of these industries have overhead, yet their rates are WELL below $125/hr. Additionally, the fence installer I used had labor rates well below $125/hr. Yes, his price was very low. Yes, he’ll probably have to raise his rates in the future. No, there’s no fucking way his rates are off by 700%.
If you have a reason for why split rail fence installation, specifically, has significantly higher labor rates than all of these other industries, then please enlighten us.
But no, the answer is not, “Barry thinks that the guy digging the holes takes home $125 for every hour he works.”
EDIT: The high end of an electrician is ~$125/hr. That’s the high end for skilled labor, not digging holes.
I’m not defending home Depot’s price. It is clearly high, and they are charging you a premium for providing a “one stop shop” type of experience complete with, I’m assuming, some kind of guarantee of quality and insurance, to people who don’t know which end of a hammer to swing at the nail.
Your contractor’s quote was absurdly low. If that is how he regularly prices jobs, he is working himself in to bankruptcy.
The reality is a reasonable price is somewhere in between. FWIW, my labourers are charged out at $45/hr, my journeymen around $75. Those prices are entirely region dependent. I don’t do smaller projects but back when I did, I would budget around those rates plus at least 50% or it just wouldn’t be worth the headache of doing an initial site visit, quoting, organizing and being responsible for the material, scheduling etc all for a couple day project.
But, If a larger company was acting as a middleman between myself and the customer, and had some kind of responsibility for my work, I could see how rates could approach $170/hr. Again, I’m not saying that’s a good deal. But you asked how the numbers made sense. Neither of the ones you received really do make much sense.
We know it’s not called Nature. Sounds more a case that ‘Justice’ prevailed.
Which is more or less what I was expecting.
I got a $1,400 quote, and a $3,400 quote. My expectation was around $2K, which would be in line with your $45/hr.
I don’t do smaller projects but back when I did, I would budget around those rates plus at least 50%
Can you explain this part, please? I’m curious, what’s a small job? An hour? Or like 20 hours?
Small means different things to different people (just ask @Rick_pcfl), but I’d expect various trades (and caliber of tradespeople) to say “less than a day,” “less than a week,” “less than a month,” or “less than a year.”
I agree, which is why I’m asking BCtg what he means by small, or more specifically what he means by “these jobs get +50%.”
A couple of years ago we replaced all three sides of our fence. One neighbour was doing his so we joined in.
He obviously paid for half of his side. Neighbour on my other side paid close to half for her side (I told her a lower price than it actually was because I don’t think she has a ton of money). Back neighbour said he would chip in then ghosted me when I emailed about the amount. I didn’t bother following up.
If BCtg is still reading, I’m actually genuinely curious about your answer regarding small jobs, just for my own education on how this works.
As I said, when looking at this job, I basically subtracted out the material costs and then looked at the labor and compared that to skilled industries. As covered before, I understood that I shouldn’t look at the take home pay, but rather the cost for work, as that covers overhead.
In the case of a 2 1/2 day fence install (this included my neighbor’s fence), let’s call that 20 hours of job time (40 of labor with a 2 man crew). That one entail 1 crew/dumpster/material drop off & pickup per day, with 8 hours of continuous work.
Had it been, instead, a 90 minute job, I assume you have to factor in the fact that you can’t just magically transport them to the next site immediately upon completion, and that the logistics, paper work, etc. is similar whether its a big or small job, so 13 small jobs is going to be a lot more work than one 20 hour job.
Note: looking into, for example, HVAC repair, they typically have a site visit fee that covers the logistics for when they aren’t charging an hourly labor rate.
I had this long reply all written out and accidentally deleted the draft instead of saving it. 
My labour rates are generally set by the type of projects we focus on, which are primarily multi month long renovations which are, broadly speaking, in the $100k-1M range.
If I use that same labour rate for smaller jobs, you spend a lot of time organizing the project (client meet, quotation, a site visit or two with your crew, a check in afterwards, coordinating the movement of material, tools and labour, maybe chasing down payment afterwards etc) for what amounts to not a lot of money.
Take your project: two guys on a 2.5 day job. My rate for unskilled labour is $45hr and their labour costs roughly $25/hr. The most I could possibly make on that project is $800 over the 3 days, before accounting for non labour related overhead. That’s not a particularly good use of my time.
Say home Depot delivers you a pile of bent lumber or something and your job is delayed a day while that gets returned. Now I’m making $200/day on that project. It’s just not worth doing unless you have small gaps in your schedule to fill between projects, or during certain times of a larger job where you don’t need much on site labour. Even then, in those situations I typically utilize my network of other contractors. Someone is always in a labour bind for more labour, and we often sub contract labour out between crews as needed. So I could make the same money with one phone call to a friend to ask if he could use Bob and Joe on his site for a week while my other job is being drywalled or something. I would rather do that then take on the headache of a 2.5 day fence, when I should be using that time to land a larger project, or work on the pre-construction phase of an upcoming job, or something.
It seems every trade approaches this issue differently. Some trades that are geared towards shorter service calls like plumbers, electricians etc who may be called for a 1 hr task keep their labour rates the same but have a 3 hour minimum charge, or their first hour is $300 and every hour afterwards is their usual rate, for example. Those are generally hourly situations and not a fixed price project like your fence.
I would bet that if two versions of me lived in parallel universes, and one me did two large projects in a year, while the other me did 100 half week projects a year, keeping the same crew at the same labour rates busy for 8 hours a day, the first me would work around half as much, be less stressed, and finish the year with a lot more money.
Thanks a lot! Much appreciated.
