You can't see good work until you see better

We've watched this happen plenty of times. We'll finish a fence somewhere and a few weeks later the bloke two doors down gets in touch, because his own fence has started looking wrong to him. He just had something sitting nearby to compare it to and once he'd seen it he couldn't unsee it.

People settle for whatever they're given because they've had nothing to measure it against and the moment they see better they change their mind straight away. The only trouble is that by then they've already paid for the first one.

We all look the same until you know what is actually ‘better’

When someone rocks up to quote your job, you've got almost nothing to go on. Same ute in the driveway, same handshake at the gate, same promise to look after you as the last three blokes who stood in your yard that week. So you assume everyone's much the same and that's fair enough, because from where you're standing we are all much the same until someone shows you otherwise. You usually find out after you've signed, which is a bit late to be of any use to you!

Most of the people quoting your fence are good people doing their best. It's just that everyone says they go above and beyond, so the phrase has stopped telling you anything and you're left choosing between six quotes that all read the same.

You shouldn't be expected to know the difference either. You'll buy maybe one fence in your life and our crew has built hundreds and still argues about the best way to handle a tricky corner. 

So here's what we'd walk you through if we were standing in the yard with you and you're welcome to take it anywhere.

Where the good stuff hides

None of this is taste and none of it is a secret. Quality shows up in the same handful of places every time and once you know where to look you'll spot it from the footpath.

The top line

Look at it from the top from one end, it should read as one straight line, or step evenly with the ground where the land moves, rather than drifting as it goes.

The back

Have a look at the side nobody was ever meant to see. If it's finished as carefully as the front, that tells you how that crew thinks.

The ground

Where the land falls away there should be a concrete retainer under the line, rather than a gap and a bit of hope.

The gates

That's where cheap hardware likes to hide and it's the part you'll put your hand on every day for twenty years. 

The site

Offcuts gone, holes filled, driveway swept. A crew that leaves your place tidy was thinking about you the whole way through.

Take that with you and look at a few fences on your street this week. It's a bit of a curse, because you'll start seeing all of it everywhere you go!

So you’ve got three quotes on the kitchen table

Here's the thing worth knowing before you start. A cheaper quote is almost never a kinder company. It's usually the same fence with fewer things written down and everything that isn't written down is something you'll be paying for later.

So put them side by side and read the words above the number first.

How much is itemised

Supply and install a fence, then one total, isn't really a quote. Better is broken into parts, so materials, labour, removal of the old fence, concreting, gates. It's the only way to work out why one is two grand cheaper than another.

Whether the materials are actually specified. 

Colorbond is not a spec. Better names the post type and size, the rail type, the panel height, the sleeper type if the ground calls for it and the brand of the gate hardware. When two quotes are far apart, the answer is nearly always sitting in this line.

Whether the posts get a mention. 

Hole depth, post material, spacing along the run. It's the part you'll never see once it's built and the part that decides whether the fence is still straight in twenty years. Plenty of quotes skip it entirely.

Where the old fence goes. 

Removal and disposal, including the tip fee. One of the most common things quietly left off and it turns up on the final invoice as though you should have assumed it.

The exclusions. 

Read this before the price. Everything sitting in there is something that's yours to pay for if it comes up. Then cross-check it against the other quotes, because one company's exclusion is often another company's included item and that's usually the real difference between the two numbers.

What happens if they hit rock. 

Better is a quote that already tells you how a variation gets priced and that you'll hear about it before the work happens, rather than after. Hard ground is common in South East Queensland and it's very hard to see from the surface.

Any allowances or provisional sums. 

A figure with the word allowance next to it is a placeholder, not a price. Two or three of those in a quote and the total at the bottom is more of a suggestion.

The timeframe and the payment stages. 

A start window, how many days on site, what the deposit is and what triggers each payment. Vague on all four is worth a conversation before you commit.

The licence number. 

Any fence over $3,300 in Queensland has to be built by someone holding a QBCC licence. The number should be on the quote and it takes about thirty seconds to check it on the QBCC website.

If one quote is thin on every point above and cheaper than the rest, that's not a bargain you've found. That's a fence with the thinking left out of it.

Where the real risk sits

Nearly everyone who comes to quote your fence is a genuine person who will do genuine work and plenty of good crews are still working towards their licence because we all started somewhere, so none of this is about running anyone down. It's about one small group worth being able to spot.

Every so often someone turns up posing as a real business, occasionally even borrowing another company's name and reviews, with no intention of doing the work at all. They're just there for the deposit. Once that money is gone you have almost no way to chase them and you can lose months at QCAT trying, which is a lot of stress to take on when a check or two up front would have spared you from it.

Two checks do most of the work.

The first is the licence. 

We mentioned the number above and this is why it matters so much. A licensed contractor has real skin in the game because they have a licence to protect and an impersonator has none, so thirty seconds on the QBCC website is often all it takes to tell them apart.

The second is the deposit. 

If someone wants half the job up front, that is your signal to slow down. Queensland law caps what a contractor can ask for before work starts. On most fencing jobs, which come in under $20,000, the most they can take is 10% and on larger jobs it drops to 5%. 

20% is the ceiling and it only applies to work custom built off site, which a fence isn't. Anyone asking for more is either unaware of the rules or hoping you are.

There is one more thing quietly working in your favour. Most residential work over $3,300 is meant to be covered by the Queensland Home Warranty Scheme, a compulsory insurance your contractor arranges and folds into the price. It steps in if a licensed builder doesn't finish the job or leaves defects they won't come back to fix and it runs for six and a half years. You should receive a notice of cover before work begins, so if it never turns up that is worth asking about. 

Put a proper written contract alongside it, with the work spelled out and the payment stages set and you have a kind of peace of mind the cheap end of the market simply can't offer you.

Now you know what better looks like

If you take one thing from this, take this one. Get someone talking about the work and watch what happens. The crews who really care will light up. They'll pick up a rail and show you the join, point at things you'd never have noticed and keep going for longer than you wanted, because talking about the work is the best part of their day. If someone goes quiet, or waves you off with a don't worry about it, that's worth noting too. It doesn't make them dodgy. It just means the detail isn't where their attention sits and in fencing the detail is more or less the whole job.

The good news is you're now a much harder person to hand an average fence to. You know where to look, you know what a considered quote reads like and you know what it sounds like when someone genuinely loves what they build. That puts you well ahead of where most people are standing when they sign.

And if you're anywhere across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Ipswich or the surrounds, we'd love to hear about your next project. Happy to walk your fence line, talk through what good would look like on your place and answer anything at all. We're always here to help.

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