Lumber rant!!!!!

Okay, so I am on vacation this week, the wife is out of town and my son is home because he just quit his summer job to practice more for his audition at TCU in three weeks. I need to replace a section of the back fence and today seemed like a perfect day to do it. I thought we could do it ourselves and it would be a good time to help our son learn some more skills he might be able to use some day.

I had already dug the holes and planted the poles for the fence several weeks ago and had put off finishing the job. Well, yesterday I went out, measured how many linear feet of fencing I needed and found out the fence slats are said to be 4 inches wide. I used my rudimentary and elementary math skills and multiplied the number of linear feet by 12 to get the inches and then divided by 4 to get the number of fence slats we would need. I then went to Home Depot and purchased the required 2x4's, fence slats, hardware and whatever else I would need.

Today we hit it early (8:30), early for us. I had left an opening between poles of 36 inches for my gate and knew that I would need 9 of the 4 inch slats to finish off my gate. The only problem I had was that when we finished the rest of the fence we did not have any slats left. I went back and remeasured and came up with the same number of required slats again. Well, I thought that I must have made a mistake and went back to Home Depot to purchase more slats. I looked at the tag on the slat and it stated 4"x1"x6'. Hmmmm, I thought. One of the always cordial Home Depots home professionals saw I was kind of confused and asked if he could help. I told him what was wrong and he said "oh, sure you need more slats. They are only, now get this, 3 1/2 inches wide and 3/4 inch deep. But they are 6 feet tall. I knew that we have been getting screwed for many years since 2x4 became 1 1/2 x 3 1/2 many years ago. But I did not know it had worked its way down to fence slats. How can they put a label on it stating it is one size when that is a blatant lie? I guess I need to take my tape measure with me and measure everything I purchase. Is a 1 inch screw actually 7/8 of an inch. We better look..

I think that next time I will use chain link fencing. I think that if I want to buy a 100 foot roll of it I might still be able to buy it at that length. Unless they have shortened it to 90 feet and call it 100........

Oh, and how many 3 1/2 inch slats does it require to finish off a 36 in wide gate? Not an even number I can tell you and you have to split one of the slats down the middle to make it work.....jeesh.......

Okay, rant off. The section of fence it done, it was very hot out but it is finished. Anyone want a cold beer????

 

Ferrarichat rule #10. Anyone posting a thread about a wooden F50 will have their arse handed to them.......

 

I realized years ago that a 2x4 was not really a 2x4 but really a 1 1/2x3 1/2. That is one of the first statements I make in the thread. I did not realize that fence pickets were not really 4"x1"x6' until yesterday. I know better now and will plan on that in the future. It still seems rather ludicrous to me how something can be labeled one size when it really is nowhere close to that size being correct. Like I said, the next time I need 1" screws I am going to check to see if they are actually 7/8".

Oh, and I found out today on another trip over to Home Depot that I could have bought pre-assembled 8' sections for less than I paid for the individual pickets, the 2x4's and the hardware to assemble them. It would have saved me about three hours labor. Boy am I red-faced. Have any of you guys made the mistake of thinking that if you assembled it yourself that you would save over the pre-assembled price? I had that belief so firmly ingrained in my head that I never even checked out the pricing of the pre-assembled sections until today. Boy, do I feel sheepish. But my son and I had a great father/son bonding experience.........

Great looking dogs. We have a miniature schnauzer. About 180 degrees different to what you have. My only advantage. My pooper-scooper is not the size of a snow shovel and wheelbarrow.........and it takes me about two minutes to give her a bath.....

 

I like the rock but we would need more acreage to justify doing it. We are in a residential neighborhood with the houses sitting on 1/4 acre lots. Kind of keeps the size down on everything. The only thing going out our gate is the lawn mower so the 36" width works fine. I had a 16' double gate at another property and like you said, they will warp over time. After 8 years it almost looked like a model for a DNA strand.....well maybe not that extreme but it did warp pretty far. A large dog could easily squeeze through the opening at the bottom middle of the gate........

 

Agreed.........about going back to HD to reduce contents of wallet.

 

The reason I was having to replace the fence was the rotting out old fence posts. They were all starting to fall down. I dug them out and replaced with steel posts as you suggested. Yes I left a little space. I just inserted a wooden yardstick between each slat which is about 1/8 inch. I had done some fence replacement in the past so this was not something new. Just the first time I was able to have my son help. I think he learned a little about it. And did I say it would have been less expensive to purchase the pre-assembled panels than to do them myself?????? Grrrrrr. And even after I told the person at HD what I was going to do, they never suggested that I might find using the pre-assembled ones quicker, easier and less costly. Nope, that would have been too much work for his brain to figure out.

 

Thanks Will. I still have another 24 feet to do on the other side of the house. I guess we will "stick build", as you say also. Putting in that much work to only have it warp in a short period of time is not appealing.........The little bit of extra work will save more time in the long run.