I used to have a direct family connection to exactly such a company. For sure could have gotten a great family discount. Sadly, the company was sold a couple years ago. A kennel directly off the patio slider may be a great temporary solution for me being lazy AND a safe, secure place to put the dogs while tradesmen and service providers are in and out in the initial frenzy of setting up house.
For the gate it kind of depends on how much your dogs will push on it and how tidy you need it to look. I have a garden with a wire fence wrapped on T-posts. The gate is just a spare used chain link person-gate we inherited. It’s attached to one t-post with baling twine as a hinge and chained to the other as a latch. Two chains (top and bottom) can make it more secure. Not a super secure gate but possibly fine for temporary use while you’re figuring things out… and I’ve even done this for sheep (who are murder on gates) temporarily.
A chainsaw is a good idea to have around but unless you’re clearing trees, not what I’d use for fencing. A long bladed battery reciprocating saw can be a good friend for sawing remote things on the fly. In general you’ll buy your fence posts at the length you need.
If you stretch the fence you have to brace the corners. Tractor supply has some brackets that will let you brace a t posts with more t posts. But for a temporary fence that is not holding in horses, you don’t necessarily have to stretch it. Again it depends on how much abuse you expect your dogs or other animals to give it. The more the fence has to deal with physical contact, the more important stretching is. My example garden, which sometimes has poultry in it, is not stretched.
You only need staples if you’re attaching to wood posts. If you are stretching the fence or it is longer than one roll, you may need crimps and the crimping tool.
To put t-posts in, you only need the pounder, which is basically a pipe with handles. You might as well get the jack for removing them too, because it sucks to need one and not have it.
To put one wood post in, you’d need a post hole digger - you can dig a hole with the special manual ones that look like two conjoined shovels - and probably a couple of bags of fence post concrete, and a regular shovel. I’ve done four post holes at a time for a building or shelter by hand by myself and it’s not awful. If you are doing a whole fence worth, though, then you want machinery and honestly it may be as easy and cheap to hire a dude to bring his bobcat and dig the holes for you than to try to do it yourself, depending on how busy they are and how remote you are. In my case it was cheaper to have the guy out than to rent one and he did the whole job in well less than two hours.
Yeah you don’t really need a chainsaw for fencing if you’re only doing wood posts for gate/corner. When putting in a LOT of fencing, a chainsaw is usually used to cut the tops of the posts 1) at an angle for water runoff and 2) so they’re all the same height, so you don’t have to be meticulous and waste time with pounding (or digging) to the same heights.
I believe you can get converter things to hang a pipe gate from a t-post. I’m sure a t post would be able to support a 4’ walk through gate.
have one of Those Things, it better than most gym equipment for a workout … I think if I was to use a lot of tee posts I would either rent or buy one of these
Ultimately, I’ll have sheep on the other side and the gates will take some abuse from excited sheepdogs. I’m really, really trying to hire a guy to pound posts. The costs are surprising me, but then fencing material costs are sky high right now.
I hope this doesn’t set the tone for all of the home improvements necessary. Our local big box hardware store is constantly out of things, employees say DIY projects have been booming since self isolation started. They can’t keep small power tools and the like stocked.
So true, and there are so many posts around here of people just trying to get rid of it after ripping it out and no one wants it.
Not if you use chain link panels, as portable kennels are made of.
Local feed stores, Lowes and Home Depot, pet stores, they all carry those, in different sizes:
Anyone that has working type dogs, especially herding dogs and livestock across the fence to frustrate them, should consider kennels for their dogs, for the dog’s and livestock peace of mind.
Yes, but you get to amortize fence.
Meh. I’m just a wee girl and I’d rather do the manual pounder than have this special use piece of machinery that takes fuel and is heavy to carry. If I were a pro and doing this every day, sure. I’d have my purpose-built fencing wagon with my supplies and this would probably be smooth and fast. But for a one off project? The next time I needed it it would probably be crufty and not start.
Your pain and suffering WRT t-post pounding will also be a function of how hard your ground is. Spring is a great time of year to put in t-posts in my neighborhood. Late summer less so.
YMMV.
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Hopefully, this is my dog run (with ramp to doggie door!)
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And this is my DIY doggie yard with gate open
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I don’t trust invisible fencing so I made a yard with electric with netting. Not pretty but kept the dogs safe for about 5 years while I saved up for pretty fencing.
if you have a local guy who has his own sawmill - you will be able to cut your cost of wood substantially. You may already know this, but, I had a wonderful border collie for 15 years - we did agility and sheep herding. I have a farm that is totally fenced plus a fenced in yard around the house - my border collie could jump - really high ( thanks to agility) so he would routinely jump over the gate and wander around the farm ( he was a free spirit) which wasn’t a problem and he would jump back in when he was through wandering the farm, but when I rode my horse in the ring, my b. collie would run the fence line back and forth ( he had a lot of herding instinct) and developed a knee injury that is expensive to operate on - I elected to use adequan injections and six weeks of crate and kennel rest, hand walking, and he was completely healed. After that, he had to go in the house when I rode to prevent another injury. Mentioning to save you a Vet bill!
