Custom Ipe Horizontal Wood Fence

Hi. My name is Stefan and I LOVE to build wood fences, wood driveway gates and patio covers, etc., to be strong and beautiful finished products that accentuate your estate and demand the admiration of you, your family and your friends and guests for years to come.

Wood Fence Installation in Los Angeles has evolved into an actual ART for the top Wood Fence installers here in the Los Angeles Area. I prefer to use the more correct term that is WOOD FENCE BUILDER, because all of us (in this trade) BUILD these wood fences: piece-by-piece of lumber, sack-by-sack of concrete for every post hole, component-by-component for every wood fence and gate, screw-by-screw, nail-by-nail, cut-by-cut for every frame member and horizontal plank, slice-by-slice for every rip necessary for supplemental frame members, etc. Yep, we are BUILDING these wood fences. INSTALLING wood fences? You'd be more correct to say installing those plastic/vinyl fences. WE ARE BUILDERS! We build these wood fences, gates, pergolas/patio covers, etc. An installer installs things that are already built, like: An alarm System, An Interior or Exterior Light Fixture, A Garbage Disposal under your sink, A Car Stereo in your car, truck, SUV or Prius, etc. We're reluctantly swallowing the term Installer of Wood Fences and the description Wood Fence Installation due to an erroneous market sub-classification. But the reality is we are Builders of Wood or Wooded Fences. The term that best describes our work activity is Wood Fence Building! High Quality Wood Fence Design and Construction is what we enjoy doing on a regular basis. Shall we build one for you?

I am very picky about making sure each project is an excellent, top quality job. There are many builders who can build you a decent fence and an okay gate that will hold up for 5, maybe 10 years. But there are only a few of us that will build you (or install for you!!) a great fence and a great gate that will endure for decades! Please ask yourself which of these two are you really shopping for?

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While the bigger companies rush through with a crew in the haphazard race to get your check, I prefer to work with one or two helpers or a small crew, take my time and make sure it's good enough to be at my place. And, I want YOUR project on this page too. I can build your project if it's within the Greater Los Angeles Area. I'm also available for special out-of-town projects if you're coming up empty-handed locally and possess the wherewithal to make special arrangements!

Redwood is a popular choice of lumber for fence construction. You may visit the California Redwood Association website to learn more about this wonderful wood, its uses, properties and many grades. Or you may save time by going straight to the Redwood Lumber Grades and Uses legend within the site.

Depending on budget and application other lumber may be more appropriate for your project or different components thereof. Woods such as Cedar, Douglas Fir, Pressure Treated Douglas Fir (PTDF), Mangaris, Ipe and others offer a rather wide range of design possibilities!

If you'd like to add years to the life expectancy and enjoyment of your outdoor wood projects, I recommend having your new wood project treated with a high quality wood stain & sealer or a high quality paint!

I believe it's worthwhile to use a superior quality coating that will preserve the beauty and integrity of your new wood project for as long as possible; compared to cheaper stains or paints.

Not all stains and paints are equal, some are much better than others.

Construction of wooden fences may appear simpler and easier than it actually is. Please understand and be aware that while many people believe that "Anybody can build a fence", there are really very few of us that take enough pride in our work and have a conscience to make sure it's structurally and visually as close to perfect as possible. There are many things that I as the builder must make sure are right and correct. I prefer to build 30 to 50 year fences, yes I'm serious. They will last that long, as long as you follow your maintenance properly (please see my BLOG article on this very subject). I say this because I have seen poor construction of privacy fences, inadequately engineered horizontal fences and back yard fences falling apart decades before they should.

I remember a "fancy" cedar wood fence that a general contractor built as part of an extensive remodel and addition project of a very nice house in a fancy neighborhood. The owner wanted this fence because she saw it immediately after construction in a magazine photo. Neither of them knew the design was seriously flawed, but hey, it looked pretty in the magazine! I was contacted and chosen to fix other mistakes this general contractor had made. Just a few minor design changes and that fence would have been built right; except of course the insufficient and sub-standard interior fasteners (for the outdoor fence), and the inadequate concrete post foundations which were set to accelerate rot and infestation. I wrote more about this one and others in my BLOG, please check it out.

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Different woods have different properties. Just as different metals melt, bend, flex, stretch and corrode differently; different woods act and perform differently. Redwood holds its form better than cedar; as a result it's noted for its dimensional stability. Both woods have good rot and infestation resistance but this is actually an incomplete statement. The heartwood of redwood (which is the part that has the pink or darker color) is the only part of redwood that honestly possesses the rot and infestation resistance. The white or light colored part of redwood which is from the outer portion of the tree has very little if any of this quality. However both parts of redwood possess excellent dimensional stability as well as an excellent ability to withstand weather as the years and decades clock by. This is why a redwood fence is so popular. There are other factors, so much so that it's almost out of context. I love building redwood fences, redwood is a great wood. It's probably perfect for 90% to 95% of wood fences. However Ipe is a wonderful wood! It's an exotic hardwood imported mainly from South America. Ipe is a member of the "Ironwood" family. There are some ironwoods that are so dense that they will not even float in water! Ipe is very strong, and so dense that it's just too difficult for termites to eat 99% of the time! Ipe is more expensive than Redwood or Cedar but it out-lasts them, out-muscles them in terms of strength, and even out-performs them in both beauty (Here's an example that we built!) and fire-resistance! This is of course why Ipe is becoming a more popular choice for outdoor wood projects for those able to take advantage of the investment. I love building with Ipe despite it's higher difficulties such as wearing out saw blades and drill bits more quickly than softwoods like Redwood, Cedar and even Douglas Fir.

A front yard fence, front porch/patio enclosure, wood driveway gate, and even back yard fence, when built with the right construction technique and design, with the right wood and properly stained, can appreciate property values on the entire block, while appreciating the property that enjoys the new build anywhere from 3x to 10x the cost of the project (and in many cases even more)! This is why some realtors and house-flippers fake it with a new and nice-looking (but poorly designed and cheaply built) new wood fence, driveway and/or pedestrian gate, or other outdoor wood project. I've seen this too many times with the new homeowner now contacting me to completely tear down the new outdoor wood project, to then build it right, strong and beautiful so it lasts. I often consider that it is not entirely honest for somebody to sell a property with a phony smile on their face, while they knowingly portray the newly built (but cheaply and of poor quality) wood fence as "It's new so that's one thing you (the prospective buyer) won't have to worry about." It really is a lie when you boil it down, presenting a new wood fence to be a quality build, when it's really a crappy build haphazardly constructed by the nearest discount crew looking for a fast paycheck. I refuse to build such a crappy wood fence or other outdoor wood project, to me it isn't an honest project built right.

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Custom Elevated/Floating Ipe Horizontal Wood Fence

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