Wrought Iron Fence

Our standard panel uses 3/4 inch square tube pickets in a 1.5 inch channel rail. Line posts run 2.5 inch square up to 6 feet of panel height. Gate posts step up with the leaf width, out to 4 inch square on the widest leaves. A gate leaf hangs off one post as a cantilever, so that post carries load a line post never sees. Those sizes are what this shop builds to, and they go heavier when a run asks for it.

We set gate posts at least 36 inches into concrete, and go deeper under a wide leaf or a solid panel. Depth is not about holding the post up. A post works as a vertical cantilever, and wind on the panel tries to rotate it in the ground. The footing resists that rotation. A solid steel panel has no gaps, so its whole face catches the wind, where an open picket panel lets most of it pass through. That is why a solid panel wants a heavier post set deeper. A shallow hole lets the post lean, and a leaning post racks the panel and loads the rail welds.

Picket spacing is set by the gap it leaves. Our standard panel runs about 4 inches on center, which leaves a clear gap near 3.25 inches with a 3/4 inch picket. That gap already stops a sphere 4 inches or larger, the limit California Health and Safety Code 115923 puts on a pool barrier. So a pool does not tighten the picket spacing. What a pool changes is the height, the clearance under the fence, the rail placement and the gate.

Health and Safety Code 115923 sets the rest of it. The barrier stands at least 60 inches tall, with no more than 2 inches of clearance underneath. The access gate opens away from the pool, self closes, and self latches with the latch no lower than 60 inches up. The outside face carries no protrusion or cavity a child under five could use as a handhold or foothold. A wide bottom rail or a scroll at knee height turns a barrier into a ladder.

So the first question on a pool job is which side the water is on. Rails go low and tight or on the pool side, and picket tops stay plain. On a sloped run, panels are stepped or raked. Stepping keeps each panel level and drops it at the post, which opens a wedge under the fence at every step. A pool barrier gets raked instead, because those wedges break the 2 inch clearance limit.

Steel in desert sun and sprinkler spray rusts at the cut ends and the weld zones first. Galvanizing goes under the color. ASTM A123 sets hot dip coating thickness by the thickness of the steel, roughly 45 to 75 microns on the wall thicknesses common in fence and gate tube. Powder over galvanizing is a duplex system, and the American Galvanizers Association publishes that it lasts 1.5 to 2.3 times the combined life of both coatings used alone.

That pairing has one failure mode. Zinc outgasses in the cure oven and leaves pinholes in the film. ASTM D7803 is the practice that prevents it, and its thermal pretreatment step is the part that gets skipped. For color, ask for an AAMA 2604 class powder. AAMA 2603 chalks faster out here. Those ratings are written for coatings on aluminum, so 2604 names the class of powder you want, and the steel underneath carries no such rating.

Height comes from the city or the county, and it changes by setback. Most codes in the area allow less in the front yard setback than along the side and rear lines. In unincorporated Antelope Valley, LA County Code 22.110.070 holds a required front yard to 3 feet 6 inches and interior side and rear yards to 6 feet.

A pool sits at odds with most front yard numbers, since the 60 inch barrier minimum runs taller than a typical front setback limit. Plan the barrier along the side and rear lines, or ask the city or county whether a review or a variance can lift the front figure. Send the panel lengths, the grade change, the gate widths and the height limit, and the steel gets built and installed to those numbers.