I noticed that somone around here has a 6' wood stockade fence.

A few years after it was erected, the pickets had shrunk widthwise so
that there is a crack between every two pickets and one can see into his
yard.

Does this mean the fence builder used wood that had not aged
sufficiently when the pickets were cut?

What woods are commonly used to make pickets? Pine? Would pine
show sap? This wood doesn't have any sap or dried sap.

Thanks

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 21:55:09 -0400, micky
wrote:

I noticed that somone around here has a 6' wood stockade fence.

A few years after it was erected, the pickets had shrunk widthwise so
that there is a crack between every two pickets and one can see into his
yard.

Does this mean the fence builder used wood that had not aged
sufficiently when the pickets were cut?

What woods are commonly used to make pickets? Pine? Would pine
show sap? This wood doesn't have any sap or dried sap.

Thanks


All wood moves widthwise. It will shrink and expand seasonally. Take
a look at it again when the rainy season starts and much of the gap
will be gone. Construction grade wood is not dried as much as
furniture grade so you will get more shrink originally too.

Pine, fir, cedar, redwood are all used for fences.

On 03/23/2014 06:55 PM, micky wrote:
I noticed that somone around here has a 6' wood stockade fence.

A few years after it was erected, the pickets had shrunk widthwise so
that there is a crack between every two pickets and one can see into his
yard.

Does this mean the fence builder used wood that had not aged
sufficiently when the pickets were cut?

What woods are commonly used to make pickets? Pine? Would pine
show sap? This wood doesn't have any sap or dried sap.

Around here, pickets are made from cedar. I have a neighbor who made
his fence without permanently affixing the pickets to the rail, by
sandwiching the tops and bottoms of pickets between two pieces of wood
(think of a tongue and groove).

He installed it this way with the pickets touching, and after they
shrunk, he pulled them together and then nailed them in place. No cracks.

Jon

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 19:53:20 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 03/23/2014 06:55 PM, micky wrote:
I noticed that somone around here has a 6' wood stockade fence.

A few years after it was erected, the pickets had shrunk widthwise so
that there is a crack between every two pickets and one can see into his
yard.

Does this mean the fence builder used wood that had not aged
sufficiently when the pickets were cut?

What woods are commonly used to make pickets? Pine? Would pine
show sap? This wood doesn't have any sap or dried sap.

Around here, pickets are made from cedar. I have a neighbor who made
his fence without permanently affixing the pickets to the rail, by
sandwiching the tops and bottoms of pickets between two pieces of wood
(think of a tongue and groove).

He installed it this way with the pickets touching, and after they
shrunk, he pulled them together and then nailed them in place. No cracks.

Jon

Wow. I've never seen anyone so careful, afaik.

Thanks, Ed. I will check when it gets rainier.

I already know that the fence builder didn't use galvanized nails (there
were rust stains running down from each nail) , and the phone number on
his little sign on the fence is disconnected, and this week for the
first time I measured the distance between his fence and mine.


There is a 6' easement between his townhouse lot and one side of mine,
This is for people in the "inside of the group" to walk through to get
to the back of their houses.

Does that mean that no part of the fence, not even the bulge of the
semi-round pickets, should be within the 6' area??? I would think so.


I finally measured the distance between our two fences, and it's 1 or 1
1/2 inches shy of the 6' in the two places I measured. The guy I
bought the house from had a survey made before he had the fence built,
but I'm sure my neighbor didn't, and I figure the cheap fence builder he
used just measured 6', or a little lesss, from my fence.


But I havent' figured out for sure how to go from the survey dimensions
to the fence location. There are two only two measurement from the
house to the boundary, one each, from the front and rear outside corners
of my house, that should go, iiuc, to the boundary of my lot. ***


There is a 6' easement between his townhouse and one side of mine, AND
there is a 5' easement on two other sides of my house, on the outside
of the lot, between my house and my property line, which on those two
sides coincides with the whole neighborhood property line.**

There are only two measurements that go to the edge of the lot (although
one of them only goes to where the fence is now (where it was supposed
to be built after the survey was made.))

One measurement from the FRONT corner indeed goes 3 feet beyond the
fence, just about to to the center of the easement between the two
houses. The midpoint of this 6' easement (between two buildings) is my
property line, and his.

But the measurement written on the survey from the REAR outside corner
of the house to the lot boundary matches the measurement I measured to
the fence, the fence, not the lot boundary. One of the measurements
from the corner must be a mistake, right? Which would be wrong, the
measurement that ends at the property line, or the one that ends at the
fence line?????? (given that the fence is supposed to be either
3' or 5' closer to the house than the property line is. 3' where it's
half of the 6 between me and my neighbor, and 5' where the entire
property ends. )


My lot is 6-sided and it's too complicated to describe how all the above
is possible, but it is. If I can I'll make a drawing and post it, but
my questions don't really relate to the shape of the lot.

No metal pins were put in during the survey and neither of us wants to
pay for another survey. So the worse his fence and the installers
look the more it looks like they didn't put the fence in the right place
either,


**(And on the last side of my lot, my other neighbor abuts my land and
my house, and there is no space or easement at all.)


I meant to only discuss the fence, but it led to the survey.

Thanks a lot.

"micky" wrote in message
...

There is a 6' easement between his townhouse lot and one side of mine,
This is for people in the "inside of the group" to walk through to get
to the back of their houses.

Does that mean that no part of the fence, not even the bulge of the
semi-round pickets, should be within the 6' area??? I would think so.

Where I live, the city building permits office answers (free) questions
like this, i.e. explains what an easement means, what tolerances
(inaccuracies) are allowed, etc. This is normal in most parts of N.
America.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Are you measuring from the actual foundation of your house, or from the siding of the house which may be a few inches different?

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 12:32:44 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

Are you measuring from the actual foundation of your house, or from the siding of the house which may be a few inches different?

Thanks for the suggestion. The first floor is brick. The foundation
doesn't show, but it didn't show when the surveyor was there either.
(He probably came the first year, but I bought it when it was 4 years
old.)

Both lines are at angles to the house but perpendicular to the line they
go to. And the fact is that both lines are drawn to go to the farthest
line from my house, what must be my property line. One of those
property lines is the mid-line of the easement between my building (of 6
homes) and the next building (6 or 8 homes). And the distance I
measured matches the distance on the survey.

And the other line is just beyond where people walk and ranges from just
before or just beyond where the land goes down a hill into the stream
bed. But the distance I measured is the distance to the fence, not the
property line, which is 5 feet farther.. The fence wasn't there when
the survey was made, but I'm not surprised it's on the survey, since
that placing the fence in the right spot was the reason for the survey.
The fence was put in by a major fence company around here, still in
business after 34 more years. I suppose the guys from the fence company
are big boys and the foreman looked at the survey, measured a bit,
realized the mistake, and put the fence where it should be, without
complaining to anyone.

The problem with all of this is that I'm still fighting with my neighbor
in the next building, who still seems to think he owns part of my land,
and I had hoped this survey, drawn mostly from the plat, but larger,
would convince him.

I guess he won't try to measure the incorrect measurement and he'll
never know the number is wrong, but I'm also considering going back to
the plat, which is now available from the county on the web, which means
it can be enlarged to show only a few houses. And I've learned how to
use MSPaint, to make my property line one color (red?), his another
(green?) and my other-side n'bor another (blue?) The plat doesn't
have these two measurements at all. It doesn't even show where the
houses are, or the newly designed-in 30 feet of public sidewalk.

I also a couple years ago called the Title Company I bought insurance
from, and they emailed me the plat. Didn't offer to defend me in court,
but I suppose I have to ask for that. I hope it won't get that far .
Not unless I'm trimming the bushes or mowing the lawn on the small part
of my land outside the fence and he calls the police.


Back to the survey, I couldn't read the surveyor's signature, and I
couldnt' read his name on his stamp, but I could almost read his
surveyor number, and on the website for the agency that licenses
surveyors, there were 4 ways to look somoene up, one was by his number,
and when I did that, I got it right the first try and the name I got
matched what I could see of his name on the seal and signature. He's
listed as 65+, retired, and living on the Eastern Shore of Md. About 3
hours from me by car. But I hate to go to him and say, "Is this a
mistake you made 33 years ago?"

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 08:54:50 -0400, "Don Phillipson"
wrote:

"micky" wrote in message
.. .

There is a 6' easement between his townhouse lot and one side of mine,
This is for people in the "inside of the group" to walk through to get
to the back of their houses.

Does that mean that no part of the fence, not even the bulge of the
semi-round pickets, should be within the 6' area??? I would think so.

Where I live, the city building permits office answers (free) questions
like this, i.e. explains what an easement means, what tolerances
(inaccuracies) are allowed, etc. This is normal in most parts of N.
America.

That's a good idea. Thanks. For the record, even not counting the
pickets' bulge, it's 1 to 1.5 inches too narrow. But the picket is
3/4" thick. (I have a picket fence with a blank space next to every
picket. He has a stockade fence.)

I think I'll go in to the permit office and ask the question in person,
and give someone there the chance to look at the survey and confirm to
me that that one measurement is incorrect. I don't know why I need
confirmation. Nothing else is possible, afaic think of.

Having contacted "city hall" is a plus for your side if things get sticky. If you happen to mention that you have contacted city hall it might intimidate him a little bit. Of course, it could also irritate him and things could escalate.

On Tue, 25 Mar 2014 14:26:49 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

Having contacted "city hall" is a plus for your side if things get sticky. If you happen to mention that you have contacted city hall it might intimidate him a little bit. Of course, it could also irritate him and things could escalate.

LOL. It's like I need my own state department to negotiate with my own
little Putin.