Aluminium fence installation in Peachtree City

What drives the price of an aluminium fence

Height and picket spacing account for most of the spread. After that it is the ground.

A run that follows a slope is racked, meaning each panel is built or adjusted to step with the grade rather than sitting level. On the sloping lots around the fairways that is normal here, and it is slower work than a flat run of the same length. Ask whether the quote assumes level ground, because that single assumption is where two aluminium prices for the same boundary part company.

The weight of the extrusion matters too. Residential aluminium comes in grades, and a heavier picket and rail costs more and stands up better to a golf cart clipping it. Gates, hinges and latches are priced apart from the run. Removal is extra.

The last variable is the run itself. Ask for the measured length after any setback rather than the boundary dimension off the plat. On a lot with a path behind it those two figures differ. Only one of them gets built.

Dark brown, dark green or black

The city does not permit exposed metal unless it is vinyl coated or painted one of those three colours, so the palette is settled before you start choosing.

This is not a guideline. It is the reason you will not see raw aluminium or white metal fencing around town, and it is worth knowing before you fall for a photograph from a manufacturer in a different state.

Black is the common choice. Against pine and hardwood it disappears at a distance, which is the point.

Why it suits golf and lake frontage

Because it encloses without blocking. Many lots here back onto fairways or onto Lake Peachtree, and the view is a large part of what the lot is worth.

A six foot privacy panel solves containment and destroys the reason you bought the place. A four foot aluminium run does the first without the second. That trade is why the eight foot maximum almost never comes up in conversation on those streets. Nobody wants the height.

The sloping ground on golf frontage is the other half of it. Rackable aluminium follows a grade cleanly where rigid panels leave gaps at the bottom.

Four feet clears the arterial street band

This is the part worth planning around.

No fence taller than four feet may stand within 40 feet of the right of way of an arterial or collector street, and the distance is 35 feet where a lot adjoins a greenbelt along a collector. Corner lots feel it hardest. A property with two street frontages can find most of its perimeter inside one of those bands.

A four foot aluminium fence is legal in all of it. That makes aluminium the material that lets a corner lot enclose its whole yard with one consistent fence, rather than switching height and material partway along and living with the seam.

Do I need a permit for a four foot fence?

Yes. Four feet is where the requirement starts, not the height above which it starts, and this is the material where that catches people out. Four foot ornamental is the usual choice on a fairway or lake lot, so it sits exactly on the line rather than safely under it.

The application wants the material and height, a site plan on an official plat or survey, and a photograph of what you intend to build.

Clay does not care that metal cannot rot

Aluminium does not rot, so what happens below grade is about movement rather than decay. Depth and drainage still decide it.

Clay holds water, swells and shrinks, and works a post loose over a few wet winters regardless of what the post is made of. Posts still want depth and a gravel base so water drains away instead of standing against them. Thirty to 36 inches, with six to eight inches of gravel underneath.

Fifty inches of rain a year is the reason. It is the same soil problem that leans wood fences, and it does not care that the metal is corrosion resistant.

Pool barriers are a separate code

This is where aluminium earns its keep for a second reason. Pool barriers have their own requirements for height, gap spacing and self closing self latching gates, and those rules come from the pool code rather than the fence ordinance.

Check both. A fence that satisfies the city’s height rule can still fail a pool inspection on latch height or picket spacing, and the two are assessed by different people against different documents.

Symmetrical panels have no bad side

For most aluminium fencing the finished-side rule does not arise, which surprises people who have read it.

The ordinance says that where a fence has structural supports on one side only, that side must face the interior of your property. Ornamental aluminium panels are usually symmetrical: the pickets pass through the rails and there is no finished face and no back. Nothing is hidden. So nothing has to be turned.

It does apply to any section built as a solid panel with a frame on one side. Worth a glance at the drawing before you assume.

Gates and hardware are separate items

The hardware is where aluminium quotes diverge.

A gate needs a heavier post than the run does, because a panel that swings puts a load on its hinge post that a fixed panel never does. Latches, hinges, drop rods on a double gate and any self closing mechanism are all separate lines.

If the gate is going to take a golf cart rather than a person, say so at the quote stage. The opening width changes the post size. That is not a change anyone can make cheaply once the concrete has gone off.

What if the lot backs onto a cart path?

The four foot setback from the edge of the paved path applies to aluminium exactly as it does to wood. It is measured from the pavement, not from your property line.

On a golf frontage lot you may be dealing with the path setback and a sloping grade at the same time. Both change the measured run, and both belong on the quote before anyone orders material.