Stephen King wrote:

willshak wrote in
:



blue wrote:



willshak wrote:
snip



That is moot where I live. There would be no reason to share the
cost since a fence cannot be placed directly on a property line.
There is a property line setback for a fence here. When I built my
6' high pool fence some 17 years ago, the setback was 6 inches from
the property line (determined by survey). A couple of years ago, my
neighbor across the street put a fence up along his property line
and the setback at that time had been extended to 3' from the line.


Wow, that would suck, so potentially 2 neighbours could end up with a
6' gap between their fences? What a waste of space. But then again,
no arguing over who wants what kind of fence if it's along the
property line. :-)

Since our neighbour isn't sharing our cost, we put our fence about 6"
in on our property, so it is entirely ours. If we put it in any
further, since they never intend to put up a fence we'd essentially
be increasing their property size with out fence.


Not necessarily, unless you cede that property or allow them to build
up to your fence. If your fence was 6' inside your line, you are not
giving up that 6'. My neighbor across the street mows that 3' between
his fence and the property line. Even so, since the local code
requires that setback, it should be exempt from adverse possession
laws as long as you don't allow the neighbor to build anything within
that 3', which would be against the code anyway.



snip



If I ever put up a cedar, or any untreated wood fence again, I would
seal all surfaces, especially horizontal surfaces where snow and
rainwater lay. It's mostly my rails that are rotting away. I can't
even drive nails into the somewhat solid, but loose, pickets to
secure them, because it's like driving nails into styrofoam rails.


Our 1x4 is hiding beneath a horizontal 2x4, so for anything to get
behind that one is somewhat difficult, but I don't think we'll risk
not staining. I'll stain the backs tomorrow morning, let them dry
most of the day, then stain the front of the trim when we put them
up. Thanks for telling me your cedar fence story, it helped with my
decision.





wow, 3 feet! Our requirement is only 2 inches.


I don't know why it was increased to 3', but I suppose there was some
knee jerk reaction. As populations increase and new housing developments
are popping up all over, what once was rural is now becoming suburban. I
guess there were complaints about people erecting, or doing maintenance
on, fences that were too close to the line, and were tearing up their
neighbor's lawn, or garden, so they changed it to allow owners to get
behind their fence and still be on their own property. It doesn't take
many complaints to make changes. "The squeaky wheel gets the oil". I
know my neighbor has a garden on the other side of my fence and I am
going to have to try to replace the fence without trampling it. 6"
doesn't allow much room for maneuvering.