Miles and miles of fencing.

Today,  I salvaged about 200 feet of seven foot tall chain link fence.  The galvanizing is almost completely worn off some areas,  but it's a thick gauge and should last for years. Sometimes, a perfectly good fence needs to come down at the wire is not rusty.

I got it from the region's largest fence building company. They usually scrap the fencing that they take down. They were reusing the posts on this job, so I just got the wire and the top rail.

In good conditions, it's possible to salvage about 50 feet of this heavy material per hour.  That includes cutting the wire free from the posts, cutting it to manageable length,  pulling all of the organic material from the fence and rolling it up.

I'm going to keep working with them until I get all of the fencing that I need for the farm. 

This opportunity exists in most metropolitan areas and even in some small towns. A person could get more than enough firewood,  building wood,  and fencing, by clearing the way for fencing companies. It's a good job for a jack of all trades. It involves tree cutting,  hedge cutting, and general landscaping skills,  along with some rudimentary metalworking skills.

The next time I find myself unemployed for a time,  I will call all of the fencing companies and offer my services.
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The photo shows about 1/3 of the fencing. Because it's quite heavy,  I cut it in 30 foot sections.

I use the antifreeze bottle in place of a pylon,  whenever I'm loading my truck where there's vehicle traffic.

A timely subject. My backyard neighbor is planning on replacing our fence (at her expense). She will be paying a guy $1.50/ft to tear down the fence. That price is about half the going rate. He discounts because he salvages what he can to use making things to resell. He usually subcontracts for installers.

I don't know as I have ever seen a chain link fence torn down around here, unless it was to upgrade. Metal lasts forever in this climate, unless it gets salt on it. Exposed wood turns to styrofoam in fifteen or twenty years because of the extremes in temperature and humidity.

Great find! In my experience top rail is stronger than posts anyway .

The toprail is super thick and it has a good layer of zinc on it still. I wonder how difficult it would be to galvanize the wire. It's a little rusty.

I'm trying to come up with other uses for this product. One of them would be to use it to hold stone onto the side of a building. I have a steep area where my tenant's ATV is tearing up the ground.  I could put some fencing down and peg it. Then there's the many uses for gabions.

I saw a fence made with welded wire and broken stone. It was like a long skinny gabion. If you line a gabion with geotextile, you can fill it with dirt to make a quick wall. There are rapidly deployable systems (expensive) that are used to make military and emergency shelter. So many options with gabions. Let your imagination run wild.

Are the top rails bendable? If so, you might be able to repurpose them as hoop house frames.

Could you treat the chain link in an acid bath to remove the rust? You may just want to paint over it and hope for the best.

The toprail is not easily bent.

There was a lot of monkeying around with the fence.

By the time I got everything rolled up and packed, I had eight hours into 300 feet of fence. Judging from how the truck is sitting, I'm guessing that I have 1200 pounds of wire and rails.

It was a good test run and I've determined that it wouldn't be worth doing the sort of job just for the fencing.

The owner of the lumberyard came out and asked if it was worth it. I told him probably not, but it was a good test. He's a guy who I've known for several years. He informed me that the fence company had knocked off a couple hundred because I was tearing down the old one. Then he invited me into the store to pick out $200.00 worth of free tools. He's a Makita dealer. Brian is an alright guy.

  Here is my new cordless reciprocating saw.

Some of the fence is quite rusty and some has plenty of galvanizing left.

I got a good heavy load on.

Fencing can be pinned directly to the ground when the area is steep and there are loose rocks in danger of tumbling down. This is done along highway embankments.

The same, could be done when there is a house at the bottom of a revine or if there is some other thing that you don't want damaged by bouncing rocks.

The fencing could be used to hold back organic materials on eroded slopes.  The wire could eventually be removed, or it could be allowed to rust into the soil after plants take over. Many areas need iron.
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These rolls are quite heavy,  so I slide them out of the back of the truck and place one end on the pile, and then lift the other end and swing at around. I roll each one onto this board and then slide them out. I used the same board when putting them into the vehicle.

Union Pacific was replacing all their phone poles and we got quite a few of the old ones for free, delivered to our house. They usually have to pay to have the taken at a dump but since we allowed them to just dump them on our property, all free. Better than free actually since we've been able to scavage a fair amount of copper, scrap metal and those insulator things that sell fairly well on Ebay. The plan is to cut them into lengths we can use as fence poles, poles for various structures, etc. Lots of good building material there!!!

I'm trying to come up with as many uses for this fencing as possible, since it appears there's an endless supply.

My soil is about 15% rock. The easiest way for me to gather rock,  is to dump it through a big sifter that is laid against a hugelkultur mound with the excavator and gather the rock that rolls to the bottom.

The next small building that I construct will be built using gabions made from the wire and rocks.

I'm using one building material to gather the other and getting sifted soil onto the hugelkultur in the process.

Stacking functions,  soil and rock.

Any updates on your gabions Dale? I like the idea of using geotextile and just filling with dirt, how do you think this might hold up long term in a semi arid environment? Perhaps planting into the dirt as well for some strength from some perennial roots?

Dale Hodgins wrote:The toprail is super thick and it has a good layer of zinc on it still. I wonder how difficult it would be to galvanize the wire. It's a little rusty.

From my old life as an environmental lawyer I know that galvanizing is a messy process that creates a lot of difficult waste -- liquid chemicals laden with zinc and (depending on your formula and your anodes and cathodes) other heavy metals.  Not saying this is a reason not to do it, just saying it's a potential impediment. [Editing to say: actually I was thinking of electroplating when I wrote this; the process of electrically depositing one metal on another, as when renewing the chrome on an old rusty bumper by dipping it in a vat of metal-charged acid and running a current through it. Galvanizing is, I think, a hot dip process where the steel is actually dipped in a molten alloy of zinc and other metals. Which is not easy to do on a fencing scale, and is somewhat industrially hazardous given that the fumes boiling off your vat of molten metal as you submerge old rusty fencing in it are nothing you'll want to breathe.]

As a practical matter I've found that when recycling old rusty chain link, it can be worth brush painting it with a high quality silver-colored exterior enamel paint.  Something functionally similar to Krylon/Rustoleum -- a paint engineered to stick to and stabilize rust.  It's not cheap but the surface area of chain link fence wires that you need to coat is small, so a little goes a long way. The result looks really nice, especially from observation distances of more than ten feet away, and it greatly extends the life of the old fencing.

I’m salivating just looking at it. I am super sick of mending crummy barbed wire as a full time job on the ranch, but can’t afford to replace the fences, so have just been wiring up scrounged cattle panels, old gates, v-mesh or chain link over the top of the breaks where possible, which works well, but they are in high demand around here and it’s hard to get first crack. I have also (when caught without better materials) created weirdly tied and woven sections with the newfangled plastic string they use on square bales instead of the old twine; it’s ugly but works surprisingly well and lasts quite a while. Alas, if the cows eat it with the hay they often die.

Where?
Free fence (chain link)
Please!

Dale, if you plan to get more, some thoughts on how to make things easier ;
- Usually the fencers remove one link  of wire to sepparate it.
- A battery operated angle grinder with 1mm stainless steel cutting blades may be easy to cut the mesh
- Could you use a trailer with a crane to lift the mesh rolls
- Do you have a bucket for the bits of wire, so you dont get a puncture and can recycle it?
- That top rail is gold, is use the bolted pipe clamps and use that pipe to make strainer assemblies at the ends of my fences.
- The posts I set into holes about 10 Inches diameter and cleaned out, the use quick set concrete.

Where can I pick. Up free chain link fence?

Joy Mulloney wrote:Where can I pick. Up free chain link fence?

My experience with Craigslist has been good. There are often old codgers willing to give away chain link fencing if you're willing to remove it. Sometimes it seems like they're getting the better deal though, when the fencing is overgrown. We fenced in most of our  backyard with "harvested" chain link. It was a hard job, though!

Joy Mulloney wrote:Where can I pick. Up free chain link fence?

The offer was 6 years ago and was only 200 ft if I read the original post correctly.

When we moved to our homestead, a long time ago we were given about the same amount of chainlink fencing.  It was only 4 ft tall.  Gee, that sure saved us a lot of money.

Look around for construction sites that are coming to a closure.  Find the foreman and just ask.  A person who asks might have to be the one to take down the fence.  A small price to pay for free fencing.

Also, a person might look for houses being torn down or moved.

Like Stacie said look on craigslist.

Dale,
   You can just pull out a strand and unweave it, then weave it back together on site.  Difficult until you get the hang of it but certainly easier once you do.  What a great idea to get something repurposed for your farm.

Any one have free fenceing near 77469 area (Houston Richmond Sugarland Rosenberg Texas area) need fenceing for a chicken coop for my chickens and been payed off any help would be a blessing ! 3252008083

I am looking for some free fencing and posts and I will pay seone to put it up... if anyone can help please let me know. I need enough fencing to make a very large dog lot.
Thank you in advance

Hello I'm writing to see if you could help me with some wood n fencing my name is Heather Stanley and my aunt is disabled and we are trying to find some one to donate some wood n fencing cause she's need a deck with ramp she' cannot do steps n we're trying for the fencing also cause she has 3 of her grandchildren that live there so she can be more at ease with them outside and this way she can sit outside n watch them from the deck porch so if anyway possible and you could help use in any way I truly would appreciate your kindness and support feel free to text me at 276-885-2081 and again thank you

My name is Lawrence Calloway,it sounds like you got your hands filled with a lot of work. Well first question is, where's is?   I am setting in a position that I can use the work. Now I think it would be easier for us just to talk on the phone, we could get a lot more done. If you are still interested on get help give me a call at your earliest convenience at (940)923-4017. And if I don't answer please leave me a message and I will call you back.