On smaller Kearns lots, most of your fence is somebody else's fence too. Front to back you may share three sides, which means the project you are planning is partly a…
On smaller Kearns lots, most of your fence is somebody else's fence too. Front to back you may share three sides, which means the project you are planning is partly a project other households have to live with. That is less a legal problem than a practical one. A neighbor who hears about the fence when the crew pulls up has opinions and no good way to express them. A neighbor who heard about it two weeks earlier usually has one or two requests, gets them answered, and then stays out of the way while the work happens.
Keep the conversation concrete. Say which run you intend to replace, roughly when, what material and height you are considering, and where you understand the line to be. Ask whether they have a survey, a plat, or a strong opinion about the back corner. If they want something different than you do, far better to learn it before material is ordered than after it is stacked in the driveway. And if you reach any arrangement about cost or scheduling, put it in a short email so both of you can check later what was agreed. Memories drift. Sent messages do not.
Cost sharing on a boundary fence is a private agreement rather than an automatic obligation, and it goes best when the terms are boring and written down. Common arrangements include splitting the job evenly, one household covering materials while the other covers labor, one paying the whole thing in exchange for picking the style, or each side paying for the runs that face their own yard. Any of those work fine. What causes trouble is a vague verbal understanding that two people remember two different ways once the invoice arrives.
Decide up front who owns the relationship with the contractor, because that person fields the day to day questions and handles whatever comes up mid job. Splitting decisions between two households usually just slows everything down. It also helps to agree on what happens afterward: who handles staining if you go with wood, who deals with storm damage, and what happens if one of you sells. None of this has to be formal. It only has to exist somewhere other than inside two people's heads. Fence 801 can connect you with Kearns fence contractors at 801-823-6018.
Most privacy fences have a good side and a framed side. Pickets go on one face while rails and posts show on the other, and somebody ends up looking at the structure. The common convention is that the finished face points outward, toward the neighbor and the street, and some municipalities and HOAs actually require it, so confirm the rule before deciding purely by preference. If nothing requires anything, it becomes a conversation, and it is a far easier conversation to have while the fence is still an idea rather than eight sections of finished work.
There is a third option that ends the argument entirely. Build it so both sides look the same. A shadowbox layout alternates boards from one side of the rail to the other, while board on board and double sided panels put pickets on both faces. Either uses more material than a single sided fence, and shadowbox carries the side benefit of letting wind through instead of catching all of it. On a shared boundary where both households are contributing, a fence with no bad side is often worth the extra material for what it quietly prevents.
Not automatically. Cost sharing on a boundary fence is generally a private agreement between the two households, not something a contractor can arrange or enforce for you. Plenty of neighbors split it and plenty do not, and both are normal. If you want a split, ask early, propose specific terms, and get it in writing before work is scheduled. If your neighbor declines, you can still build on your own side and pay for it yourself.
The common practice is that the finished side faces out, so the neighbor and the street see pickets rather than rails and posts. Some municipalities and HOAs require it, so check before assuming the choice is yours. If you would rather not give up the good side, a shadowbox or board on board design looks the same from both directions and removes the question. Settle it before the panels get built, not after they are standing.
That depends on your zone and on visibility rules at corners, and it is exactly the sort of requirement that varies between places and changes over time. Confirm setback and height rules with the planning office that serves Kearns before you order material, and check your HOA separately if you have one. On a tight lot those two rules together often shape your layout more than any preference you started with.
Cedar or treated pine, built board by board on site, which is why wood follows a slope and an odd corner better than anything else. It moves with the seasons, it takes stain, and it wants that attention on a schedule.
Learn more →Vinyl keeps its color and never asks for a stain rag, which is most of the appeal. The real questions are how the posts are set and how much wind those solid panels are going to catch out where you are putting them.
Learn more →Ornamental aluminum and steel where you want a boundary you can see through, chain link where you want dogs contained and a back line marked. Both let wind pass instead of fighting it, which matters on an exposed lot.
Learn more →Gates are the moving part, and moving parts are what fail. Width, post size, hinges, latch type and whether that post was set to carry a swinging load are what separate a gate that closes from one you lift.
Learn more →Leaning posts, wind-broken panels, a section a falling limb took out, a gate that quit latching. Sometimes a whole run has to come down and sometimes four posts are the entire problem, and those are very different jobs.
Learn more →Get quotes from contractors who set posts properly. No fee to be matched.
Call 801-823-6018A few details about the yard is all we need to route it correctly.