Some of the fence panels are looking a little worse for wear, mainly because the cats sit on top of them and use them as scratching posts. A couple of them got damaged in the recent violent winds. We did a quick count up, and decided that 4 of them needed replacing. We decided that it would look odd for our neighbour if we had a chequerboard of new and old panels, so we decided to put the new panels up at the house end where only 1, maybe 2, needed replacing, and swap the good house end panels with the decrepit ones further down.
So, we went to a specialist fencing place (better quality fence panels than the local Shed DIYs, and loaded the roofrack with 4 panels of 6 foot high fencing.
When we got back, we realised it should have been 5 foot 6 as we have gravel boards. So, the fence panels were driven back (thank goodness we hadn't unloaded them) and were swapped for the correct size.
DH started trying to fit them. The first gap wasn't 6 foot. We then remembered that the fence chappy had miscalculated, and had started at the end of the garden meaning that he had to do a bit of a botch at the house end. It doesn't look like too much of a botch job, thats why we hadn't remembered.
DH had to cut the panel down and refix the frame, so rather a lot more work than expected. The panel we took out split at the bottom as we removed it. No reusing that one then.
Number two came out, and the new one went in, like a dream. We even managed to redeploy the removed panel. The botttom of old panel number 3 split while DH and I were having an argument about why I couldn't lift it out and hold it at the same time (I'm too short). No redeploying that one then. Number 4 - same, although not caused by us arguing, .
So, we have our four new panels fitted, and only one of them was redeployable. DH looked at the old panels and said he could probably make one, maybe two panels from them. This seemed like a lot of work on fence panels which were old and brittle anyway.
I suggested that we just went and bought more new panels. We don't need to replace all of them - some of them, those right down the end, are between sheds. No one sees them, so who cares.
I suggested getting as many panels as we needed, and getting them delivered.
DH determined to go and collect them, so we'll l probably get another 4 panels - I'm not sure carrying any more on a roofrack will be sensible. That will replace 2 more of the damaged ones, and we might be able to salvage one or 2 of them to redeploy.
Or, more likely, we'll end up getting 8 more panels and doing 2 trips.
We'll see.
