The Fence Man

A few days ago I emailed The Fence Man with photos of a gap that formed in the corner of my fence. The two walls were falling away from each other. John, the owner of The Fence Man, called me in this morning, and said he could stop by in half an hour to fix it and quoted $ 50. He showed up right on time, friendly and professional, and went right to work. He finished the job quickly, and the fence looks solid. He also fixed the gate that was near the gapped corner.
A friend of mine recommended him to me, because he does work for a local business, and now I am happy to recommend The Fence Man too!

I LOVED working with the Fence Man. We knew we needed a fence and we needed it fast. My husband and I are expecting our first baby, have a puppy, and live on a busy street. I called and spoke to John and he came over for an estimate the next day. He gave me ideas, showed me different material, and also offered to fix part of an existing fence that is falling apart at no charge. I did my due diligence and asked for another local company to come out for a quote. Not only did the other company come in at an unreasonably higher price for the SAME material, but he showed up late and couldn’t come over for a week. I obviously let John know that we wanted to get started ASAP. About a week later the material was in and John, his brother Dan, his son, and his father were all over here working. We have a large hard fence was done in a day and a half! The entire family is friendly, reliable, quick, and do an INCREDIBLE job. We couldn’t be happier with the results. I would highly recommend you save your time and call The Fence Man first.

I can’t comment on the work and I felt he would have done a good job and had great suggestions (he needs to join the electronic age tho, I haven’t seen a hand held photo album in a while and I would have preferred to have examples emailed to me) I can’t say for sure if he was the source but I was (almost) taken for a ride –bamboozled– a family member works at another fence company, he priced himself out of the water and then acted baffled by how «low» the fence man was. Telling me I should jump on it and that he had gone over his numbers and he didn’t understand, «maybe he just doesn’t pay himself much?»
It went on but I caught on quick, especially when the next quote came in 1.5k less. And, all other quotes included removing any old fence, I had a line item cost attached to my quote.
Again, I can’t say the fence man was fully involved but I didn’t trust him anymore. And someone at his office was very rude to me each time I called.
I do think he can do the job. He has good ideas and the examples of his work was great. Just make sure the price is right.

Made some good suggestions on modifications to my original plan. Worked really fast and did a great install. Very happy with my fence. Really appreciated being able to pay by credit card.

John is the classic case of don’t judge a book by its cover — he has a lot of tattoos and I know a lot of people can be intimidated or off put by that. To dismiss John would be a mistake if you want to work with a quality contractor.
I contacted the Fence Man to repair a gate on my fence that the original installation company butchered. I contacted the original installation company after having completely a rehab of my backyard that resulted in a section of my fence being removed (to allow heavy equipment). Their solution to a gate that was rubbing against a now unlevel post was to hack the gate with what appeared to be a hacksaw. After being thoroughly disappointed in that hack job, I called John at the recommendation of a neighbor.
John arrived on time for the scheduled appointment. He seemed knowledgeable and quoted a fair price. I hired him immediately and he told me he would be there within a week or so which was fine by me, I wasn’t in a huge rush. After a week of bad weather, I figured he had gotten backed up so I called him to just check in. A brief aside here — if you are hiring a contractor for a small job, don’t expect to be first in line. I asked if we could line up a time as I was at a stage where the staining of my fence was imminent. John said he would be there that day, and he was. Unheard of for a $ 300 repair job.
John did a great job straightening out my fence and fixing the hack job that the other company did. Not only that, John dealt with my perfectionist ways. He removed the gate (after completing the repair) and releveled it because I noticed it was 1/​16″ out of level. There was no debate, he knew that I was not happy and he made it right. This is the truest measure of customer service. I have done a range of projects at my home and I have only ever encountered this level of customer service with 2 other contractors (Impressive Basements, Interior Stone). It is a pleasure to work with a contractor that understands that the job needs to be right and that the customer needs to be happy.
I would have no reservation recommending John to a stranger or to a friend.

I was tailgated (even though I was already driving in excess of the speed limit myself), and obscenely flipped off by «The Fence Man», or one of his associates in a company truck, when I was driving with my mother as a passenger on Mother’s Day none-​the-​less. I doubt that’s the type of company you’d want to have work for you or your family.

Originally, I wished I could give them 0 stars, but the more I thought about it, they earned their 1 star. They earned it by showing up promptly for the estimate, giving us a fair price and for refunding our deposit and removing the craptastic fence they installed on our property (after a few less-​than-​enjoyable phone interactions with the rather unpleasant woman at their office).
The truth of the matter is that we had another almost identical quote from another company, but we chose to go with The Fence Man because of his lifetime warranty on his workmanship. I probably should have questioned our selection of fence company when The Fence Man did not show up on the day he said he was going to install our fence (or the day after or the day after that). He finally showed up a week after the original installation date. To his credit, John was very nice and seemed knowledgable and enthusiastic. We were not in any kind of a rush, so it was not a huge deal that he was a week late… however, hindsight is ²⁰⁄₂₀.
Our new cedar fence looked great from the outside, however, John used hand-​hewn pine rails along the back of the fence. Hand-​hewn, meaning they looked like he had chiseled the ends of them with an axe… some were positively squared off where they went into the posts. And pine. PINE. We paid for a cedar fence, not cedar boards and pine rails.
Anyone who knows anything about cedar fences (as I would hope The Fence Man does after decades in the business) knows that pine lasts half as long as cedar. So our lovely cedar (board) fence that should last 15 – 20 years had rails (that hold the entire thing together and UP) that would only last 7 – 10 years. WTF!!!
When I questioned John’s father (who, I am fairly certain, actually started the company) as to whether using pine rails was the standard practice, he shrugged his shoulders and said, «I guess so.» Really? I don’t think so.
In addition to the pine rails, they had put up 3 sections that were 10 feet long. Most fence companies will tell you that 10 foot sections are not ideal because they are more likely to sag over time. We did not know that going into this; our first fence installation, so we wouldn’t have thought much about it until a few years later, when those sections started to sag.
In the end, they removed the fence. I’m sure they were not happy about it, but it was probably the best way for our business relationship to end.

Overpriced for work that one could do oneself. Came 2 days later than he said. Would not hire again and certainly would not recommend.