Independent Fencing Advice
A straight answer from somebody who is not quoting the work.
Why people bring this to somebody outside
This is the smallest service on the list and the one people use most. It is a phone call, an email with photographs attached, or an hour looking at a proposal somebody has put in front of you - and a plain answer about whether it is right.
Everyone else you can ask has a fence to sell you. That is not a criticism of fencing contractors; I am one, and have been for a long time. It is simply that a quote is shaped by what that business builds, what is in their yard and what they are set up to do quickly. So the questions that decide whether a fence lasts twenty years or five rarely get asked out loud.
I am paid for the advice and not for the work that follows, which means there is no reason to talk you into more fence than you need and no reason to be polite about a proposal that has left something out. If the honest answer is that what you have been offered is good and you should get on with it, that is the answer you get. It happens often.
Rock. The single thing most often missed at quoting stage, and the fastest way to turn a fixed price into a variation.
What this covers
Independent expert advice before construction
The cheapest possible time to find out that the plan is wrong.
Second opinions on proposed fencing systems
A read on what has been recommended to you, and on what it will actually do in your conditions.
Best-practice recommendations
What competent practice looks like for this fence type, in writing.
Product comparisons
Materials and systems compared on service life and total cost rather than on the brochure.
Lifecycle and maintenance advice
What the asset will need, and when, so the whole-of-life number is on the table at the start.
Who this is for
- Lifestyle and rural owners with quotes they cannot compare
- Boards, trustees and committees who have to sign off a recommendation they cannot assess
- Corporate owners whose farm manager has proposed a fencing programme
- Anyone who has been told there is only one way to do it
What you get
- A phone or video conversation, often enough on its own
- A short written opinion where a decision has to be recorded
- A product or system comparison with the trade-offs set out
Costed and agreed before I start, never after. A phone call about a straightforward question is usually free.
Often taken together with
Fence Design & Specification
Deciding what is going in, and writing it down properly, before anybody is asked to price it.
Read more →Dispute Resolution
An impartial assessment, in writing, from somebody with no stake in how it turns out.
Read more →Compliance & Standards
Which rules actually apply to this fence, and whether what is proposed will satisfy them.
Read more →Paid for the advice, not for the work that follows
I am a certified fencer and I also own a fencing contracting business. That is stated up front rather than buried, because it is the first thing anybody sensible wants to know about an independent adviser.
The rule is simple and it does not bend. If I am advising you, my contracting company is not tendering for your job. You can have my advice or you can have my crew, and you cannot have both on the same project, because the moment you could the advice stops being worth anything. If you would rather have the fence built than the question answered, I will say so and point you elsewhere.
It works the same way in a dispute. I give the same finding whichever party is paying for the assessment, and if your position is the weaker one you will hear that from me first.
The contracting business is Custom Fencing Ltd, which is where the experience behind all of this comes from - and it is disclosed here so that you can check it rather than discover it.
FCANZ Certified Fencer. The Fencing Contractors Association of New Zealand assesses fencers against a practical standard that has to be maintained rather than earned once. The reason it matters here: the advice comes from somebody who still has to go out and build to the standard he is describing.
Tell me what you are trying to work out
Most people get in touch because they have a decision to make and nobody independent to check it with - a tender that does not add up, a fence line that keeps failing, a dispute that has stopped moving, or a property they are about to buy. Describe the situation and I will tell you honestly whether it needs me, and what it would take.
021 614 100- nick@customfenceconsulting.co.nz
- 130 Edinburgh Street, Waikouaiti 9510, Otago
- Monday to Friday, 7am - 5.30pm
Based at Waikouaiti in East Otago and working throughout New Zealand. Site work anywhere in the country; desk work - a tender review, a specification, an opinion on a set of photographs - can start the day you send it.