Posted on August 9, 2009 13:47 by
Sam Li
I moved recently to the new house, which I bought from the builder and since it’s a new house as you probably already guessed there was no fence. In my situation I had a neighbour only on one side. The rest of the houses moved in a previous year and they wanted to get a fence ASAP. To be a good neighbour I didn’t argue regarding how it should be done and I ended up paying for a part of my fence to the hired contractor. So in a last year I had a contractor completed part of my fence and this year I completed the rest by myself with another neighbour help. Here is a cost breakdown contractor versus do it yourself.
|
|
Linear feet
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Total cost, after tax
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Cost per foot
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Cost per foot, per neighbour
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Contractor
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27
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$ 680.00
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$ 25.19
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$ 12.60
|
|
DIY
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70
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$ 986.41
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$ 14.09
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$ 7.05
|
As you can see DIY cost almost twice less. There is one downfall though, you have to be a handy man and you need time to build it. Regarding time, I spent one week-end to complete this project and my neighbour helped me.
2 men, 1 week-end, $ 493.21 (material) – that’s the cost of the project.
There’s another advantage to complete home improvement projects this year and it’s a Home Renovation Tax Credit (HRTC), here is a link for details
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/sgmnts/hmwnr/hrtc/menu-eng.html
Here are some pictures from the project 
There are some tricks and tips in order to reduce material costs.
1. Buy material at lumber yard
In general lumber yard prices are lower than any major hardware store. You can search for available lumber yards at your area on the web, there are plenty of them. Important note: if you buy pressure treated wood in Home Depot for example, you will need to wait for a week at least until all wood is dry. While it’s drying it’s shrinking, so you really don’t want to use it before it’s completely dry. Major hardware stores store the lumber inside of the building under the roof in comparison lumber yards store the wood in open area, it makes it dry at the moment you buy it, also if the wood deformed you will see it right away.
2. Rent the tools
If you don’t have tools to perform the home improvement project you DON’T HAVE TO BUY IT! You can rent it! Here you have to be based on your own logic, for example if you dig the hole you better rent the digger not to buy it, because after you done with fence and may be the deck, you probably won’t need it any more.