Welding, steel gates and fences in Leona Valley, CA

Ranch fencing and gates are the staple here: fencing that suits horse property, wide driveway gates for the longer ranch drives, and handrails and iron work that hold up in a windy, exposed setting.

Leona Valley has its own rulebook, and for anyone planning a fence it contains the single most decisive line in the valley. The Leona Valley Community Standards District is LA County Code Chapter 22.330.

Under 22.330.060.B, where perimeter fencing is installed, including where it is installed to protect horses and livestock, it has to be of an open, non-view-obscuring, permeable type of design. The code then gives examples of what qualifies, such as wood rail, steel pipe, vinyl rail, PVC pipe, recycled plastic rail, or coated wire. Except for retaining walls, solid view-obscuring perimeter fences and walls are prohibited.

Two things follow from that. A solid privacy fence is not an option on a Leona Valley perimeter, whatever anyone quotes for one. And steel pipe is named in the ordinance as a permitted material, which is an unusual thing to find written into a code and happens to be exactly what we fabricate. A welded steel pipe rail fence here is not a workaround. It is named in the code.

The reasoning behind the rule shapes the build as well as the material. The district exists to protect the valley's rural and agricultural character, and permeable fencing is part of keeping the ground open. The point is a fence that an animal can see through and move around, so the details that matter are rail spacing and rail height rather than how much of the view you can close off.

Height still comes from the county. LA County Code 22.110.070 holds a fence in a required front yard to 3 feet 6 inches and an interior side or rear yard to 6 feet, measured at the highest average ground level within 3 feet of either side of the fence.

On horse property the build decisions sit inside those numbers. Rail spacing gets set so a leg cannot go through and a horse cannot get a head between rails. The top rail gets left clean and without projections, because that is where an animal leans. The gate latch gets picked so it can be worked from the saddle and stays shut when a horse pushes at it. None of that is code. It is fabrication, so tell us what is behind the fence when we measure.

Leona Valley takes the same wind as the rest of the Antelope Valley and funnels it along the valley floor. That is easier on an open fence than on a solid one, which is a quiet advantage of the code here: the fence the district requires is also the fence the wind treats best. What the wind does work on is the gate, because a gate leaf is the largest single thing hanging off a post on the property.

Ranch drives here are long and the gates are wide, and width is what sizes everything else. A gate post works as a vertical cantilever, so the leaf hangs off one face and the demand is the weight times how far that weight sits out from the post. Widen the gate and the load climbs faster than the width does. A single leaf carries the whole opening; two leaves split it. Gate posts should go at least 36 inches below ground and deeper on a wide leaf, which is our own practice rather than a published minimum.

Give us the run length, the opening width, and whether there are animals behind the fence, and we will come out and walk it. If someone has quoted you a solid run for a Leona Valley perimeter, bring that quote too, because it is worth reading against 22.330.060.B before anybody starts cutting.

We build all of it at our Lancaster shop, so you get the same fabrication and the same crew as the yard down the road. Call (818) 220-8704 for a free estimate and we will come measure.