Wrought Iron Fence in Quartz Hill, CA

Open pickets keep a long frontage looking open. For height, 22.110.070.B.1 says a fence or wall in a required front yard shall not exceed 3 feet 6 inches, and that is the figure we build iron to there. If you have heard of a county allowance for an open top, get it from county planning in writing before we build to it. Along a required interior side or rear yard the limit is 6 feet. On a corner lot the street side is held to 3 feet 6 inches closer than 5 feet to the highway line and gets 6 feet at 5 feet or more back.

Our standard panel is 3/4 inch square tube pickets in a 1.5 inch channel rail. Pickets sit about 4 inches on center, which leaves a clear gap near 3.25 inches. Line posts are 2.5 inch square up to 6 feet of panel, and gate posts step up toward 4 inch square as the leaf widens. Those are shop sizes, and a run with horses along it or a very wide gate gets heavier steel.

A pool changes the fence more than any other feature on the lot. California Health and Safety Code 115923 sets the barrier at 60 inches or more, with no more than 2 inches under it and no opening that passes a 4 inch sphere. The gate opens away from the pool, closes and latches by itself, and has its latch no lower than 60 inches up. The outside face cannot offer a handhold or foothold. Our standard picket gap already clears the sphere rule.

Here is where the county number and the pool number meet. A 60 inch barrier is taller than the 3 feet 6 inches allowed in a required front yard, so the pool enclosure has to sit outside that yard. Lancaster's director's review, which can lift a Lancaster limit by 25 percent, is a Lancaster rule and does not reach Quartz Hill. Lay the pool fence out in the required interior side and rear yards, where 6 feet is allowed.

A corner lot needs one more check. On the street side, a corner side yard is held to 3 feet 6 inches closer than 5 feet to the highway line, so a 60 inch barrier there would be over the limit. Keep that run 5 feet or more back.

On falling ground a fence can step or rake. Stepping keeps each panel level and drops it at the post, leaving a wedge of open ground under the low end. Raking tilts the panel to follow the slope. A pool barrier gets raked, because those wedges break the 2 inch clearance. The county reads height from the highest average ground level within 3 feet of either side, allowing up to 6 inches of variation provided the average stays under the limit, so we shoot the grade before deciding which to use.

On Quartz Hill horse property, picket tops stay plain and the rails get placed where a leaning animal meets steel, not a picket end. Posts carry more push along a paddock than along a frontage, so that stretch gets the heavier section and closer spacing. We set posts at least 36 inches deep in concrete as our own practice, not a code figure, deeper under a wide gate or in loose soil.

Galvanizing goes under the color. ASTM A123 puts roughly 45 to 75 microns of zinc on common fence tube, and powder over it is a duplex system that the American Galvanizers Association rates at 1.5 to 2.3 times the combined life of the two alone. The ASTM D7803 thermal prep stops pinholes. Ask for an AAMA 2604 class powder.

Send the panel lengths, the fall of the ground, the gate widths, which yard each run sits in, and where the pool is if there is one.

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