Replacing garden wall

Contessa

The brick (and rendered) garden wall needs replacing as it may collapse. it's approx 112feet long. The quote I've had to remove it and replace it with a similar size (3 foot) wooden fence is........£3600.
I'm in a state of shock!
I would be grateful for any advice/experience or suggestions.
Thanks

knowloads

I am in a state of shock too, but for the opposite reason 112ft demolition and re-build, skip, 2-3 men, Sell some diamonds.
It may be cheaper to get basic labour to remove the old stuff. Skips are about £120 these days, men £40-60 a day for a good labourer. Look at Gumtree site for guys looking for work. Then get fencing company to do the rest. Posts £10 each, base panels £12 each, wood panels £10 each, May save a few hundred £££'s

olias

knowloads wrote: »

I am in a state of shock too, but for the opposite reason 112ft demolition and re-build, skip, 2-3 men, Sell some diamonds.
It may be cheaper to get basic labour to remove the old stuff. Skips are about £120 these days, men £40-60 a day for a good labourer. Look at Gumtree site for guys looking for work. Then get fencing company to do the rest. Posts £10 each, base panels £12 each, wood panels £10 each, May save a few hundred £££'s

£40 per day isn't even minimum wage!!!

Olias

Cknocker

Assuming the wall is built on a concrete footing - which it should be, how do you intend to fix the fence posts?

Why not replace with block? It should cost about £1000 to rebuild all in, assuming 50p per block (Thats what I'm paying at the moment), £1.20 per block to lay, plus sand cement etc and £300 to render. All assuming a suitable foundation is there.

Regarding taking down, can you not yourself, or no anyone who would be happy to wield a sledge hammer for a day for a £150 or so?

With disposal is there not an aggreggate reclaim yard near you, where you will be able to dispose of it for nothing and say £150 for disposal?

Thats the whole job for less than £1500, with a block wall!

knowloads

olias wrote: »

£40 per day isn't even minimum wage!!!

Olias

Never said it was, but I never have problems finding one off labour for that up'th north. One mans minimum is another mans rent,booze,fags,.

:beer:

Contessa

The house is in Devon. Should that make it more expensive?

olias

All down to supply and demand really. Is there a lot of building work there at the moment or are builders struggling for work? Is there a shortage of builders meaning that they can push there prices up as their work is in demand etc etc. I would have thought that being one of the more expensive places to live in the UK, then tradesmen would charge more to cover their costs

Olias

Cknocker

Well I'm in Cornwall, so I would say the cost for the wall will be about the same.Cornwall is generally suffering less with the recession in the building industry at the moment, so theres been no massive cost reductions.

Bishop_Basher

Contessa wrote: »

The brick (and rendered) garden wall needs replacing as it may collapse. it's approx 112feet long. The quote I've had to remove it and replace it with a similar size (3 foot) wooden fence is........£3600.
I'm in a state of shock!
I would be grateful for any advice/experience or suggestions.
Thanks

If all you wanted was a fence you'd be looking at anything from £1500 to £1800.

As some one has said how are they fixing the fence onto a solid concrete foundation?
Are they completely digging it up so your back th the soil or some how fixing the posts on top of the walls foundations?

Contessa

From what the builder said I understand that he intends to remove the concrete footings-this seems to be the major part of the expense, and, according to him, a huge task. I'm concerned that all of the fence would be wood, no concrete posts. And, as it would only be 3 foot high, not a lot to show for my money!

Vibrant

Provided the footings are sound and deep enough (say 6 inches), you could leave them in place and use bolt down metpost fixings:
http://www.wickes.co.uk/Bolt-Down-Flush-Fit/invt/540558

While this would cost you more for the fittings, you would save on time removing the footings, save on concrete to fix the posts and you would need less length of post. As your fence is only 3 foot tall, 75mm posts would be sufficient.
It is also very easy to build, as you already have a nice flat surface, so any reasonable DIYer would be able to do it, considerably cheaper than a builder.

I have a 3ft 6 fence held up with metposts, that I erected (so it must be easy) 20 plus years ago, that is still fine, with no repairs, just a lick of creosote every 3 years.