Fence questions Northridge homeowners ask

Chain link opens the list at $18 to $40 a linear foot. Wood sits at $30 to $60, vinyl at $40 to $70, and wrought iron at $50 to $120, every one of those installed. Run length, gate count, and the grade of material decide where inside the band you land. Nobody is adding a slope premium on these flat tracts either, so a clean straight run often prices near the bottom of its range.

Chain link wins on price at $18 to $40 a linear foot, which is why it earns its keep on a back line or a dog run and almost never on street frontage. For six feet of real privacy, wood does the job for the least money, and a 150 foot cedar run generally comes to $4,500 to $9,000 installed. Vinyl costs more on day one at that same height, then asks nothing of you afterward.

Usually not. Build at or under the allowed height and the City of Los Angeles wants no building permit from you. LADBS does want one once a fence passes what your lot allows, once a wall starts holding back soil, or once the work moves into the public right of way. Pool barriers answer to their own section of the code. Most Northridge tracts also sit outside an HOA, so there is rarely a second approval to chase.

Six feet is the standard in the side and rear yards under City of Los Angeles rules, and on a lot measuring forty feet or more in width, which covers most of the Northridge tracts, the City allows eight. The required front yard drops to about three and a half feet. Corner lots carry a visibility triangle near the street, so height gets cut back there to keep the view open for drivers. Anything past the limit that applies to your lot has to be permitted through LADBS.

Both of you, in most cases. The Good Neighbor Fence Act, California Civil Code section 841, starts from the presumption that adjoining owners share the reasonable cost of a boundary fence equally. Before the work starts, the law wants your neighbor to have at least 30 days written notice covering the problem, the fence you plan, and what you expect it to cost. It should also spell out that an even split is the legal starting point, and when the work would go in. If the two of you would rather divide it some other way, put that in writing and it holds.

Material decides it. Cedar or redwood gives you about 15 to 20 years if you seal it every few years, and chain link runs the same 15 to 20. Vinyl goes 20 to 30 years or more on almost no upkeep, and powder-coated wrought iron can pass 40. What wears a wood fence down around here is the run of 95 to 105 degree summers, and on this soil the footing is what decides whether any of them is still plumb at the end.

Yes. Every residential pool in California needs a safety barrier at least five feet high, with a self-closing, self-latching gate that swings away from the water, and the City of Los Angeles enforces that here. Two ways to satisfy it: removable mesh at $15 to $30 a linear foot, or a permanent metal barrier at $40 to $90 that can double as the yard fence.

Northridge sits on deep alluvial soil near the 1994 earthquake epicenter, and that ground moves more than bedrock does. A fence set on a shallow or undersized footing picks up the movement and starts to lean, while one on a properly sized, well-compacted footing stays plumb for years. On the flat tracts we also plan drainage so water does not pool against the posts, since standing water is what rots a base early.