Steel Privacy Fence in Quartz Hill, CA

Privacy on a Quartz Hill lot depends on which yard the run crosses. Section 22.110.070 gives the county three numbers. A required front yard gets 3 feet 6 inches. A required interior side or rear yard gets 6 feet. A corner side yard gets 3 feet 6 inches where the fence is closer than 5 feet to the highway line, and 6 feet once it is 5 feet or more back. A solid face in a required front yard hides very little at 3 feet 6 inches, so the real screening work is along the side and rear lines.

Those lines run long on a larger Quartz Hill lot, and every post along them carries the same wind. A solid panel has no openings, so its full face pushes on its post, where an open panel would let most of the air go by. That load sets the post section and how close together the posts stand. A long run does not make any single post work harder. It multiplies the footings, and one weak footing is enough to put a lean in the line.

We set fence and gate posts at least 36 inches deep in concrete. That figure is this shop's practice, not a code or a published standard. A solid run gets deeper footings than an open one, and sandy ground that will not keep the shape of the hole gets deeper again.

A solid panel cannot rake down a slope without leaving a wedge of open ground under it, so on falling ground it steps at each post. The county reads the height from the highest average ground level within 3 feet of either side of the fence, and allows up to 6 inches of variation provided the average stays under the limit. That allowance is often what lets a stepped run hold its 6 feet across ground that drops. We shoot the grade first and place each step so no panel lands over.

Quartz Hill horse property changes the details. Animals lean on a fence and rub along it, so the top edge gets left plain and the lower part of the panel gets welded to the frame rather than fastened, with a rail heavy enough to take a push. A solid face beside a pen also takes more wind than an open rail, so the posts along that stretch get the heavier section.

Most runs need an opening for a tractor, a truck or a trailer. A solid gate leaf is the largest wind surface on the whole line, and it hangs on hinges instead of sitting on its own footing, so the gate post and hardware get sized apart from the fence posts beside it.

The finish carries the steel through the sun. Hot dip galvanizing under ASTM A123 sets the zinc by the thickness of the steel. Powder over the galvanizing needs the thermal prep in ASTM D7803, or the zinc outgasses and leaves pinholes. Ask for an AAMA 2604 class powder rather than the 2603 tier. Cut ends and weld seams carry the thinnest coating, so they get dressed before anything is sprayed.

Bring the length of each run, the yard each one sits in, where your required front yard ends, and whether the lot is on a corner. Photos of the fall of the ground and a note of where the openings go get us most of the way to a drawing.

This work runs out of our shop on Division Street in Lancaster. Read the full steel privacy fence details, or call (818) 220-8704 and we will come out.