Aluminum fences are great. They protect your family and property. They can create a safe outdoor space for children and pets. And they are a great investment for commercial or rental properties.
But there’s no such thing as a universal solution. Aluminum fences can’t solve all your problems. So let’s look at some cases where aluminum fences would not fit, and by doing so, reveal some more benefits of aluminum fencing.
1) Aluminum fencing is not practical for enormous spaces.
Down in Texas, they love their space. There are entire neighborhoods where each house is only around 1,500 to 2,500 square feet. But they each have around 5 acres of land! For context, an American football field is around 1.3 acres.
So my grandmother basically lived on 3.5 football fields of land. Much of her yard was covered with trees and bushes. However, she needed a fence around her property line to keep her pet horse from wandering off. So my cousins and I used a bunch of rough 4 x 4s to build a farmstyle wooden fence.
That wooden fence only lasted for a few years and needed constant maintenance almost every month. It also rotted and warped since it was exposed to the elements. It was a wooden fence made of scrap wood and built by teenagers. So my grandparents got what they paid for.
Eventually, they replaced this fungus infested fence with barbed wire along iron fence posts. However, the iron rusted over time.
The moral of the story is that aluminum fencing is affordable for suburban homes. But for rural homes…it’s a bit more pricey. I suspect that if my grandparents made the upfront investment for aluminum fencing… well, they would be grumpy about the price of covering 5 acres. But I have no doubt that the fence would still be standing tall today.
So if you are in a rural area, it’s a trade off. Large upfront investment for decades of strong, stable fencing. Or go with a cheaper option and have to pay for it later.
2) Aluminum fencing is not practical for livestock.
Now, I’ve seen aluminum privacy fences keep backyard chickens and ducks safe. But for farmland? No way.
Now I have an uncle in Texas (I have a lot of family in Texas) with a massive cattle ranch. Similar to my grandmother, it would not be practical to cover that much space with aluminum fencing. My uncle also does not care for aesthetics; he used to look at aluminum fencing and say “it’s too fancy for me!”
But he did buy aluminum fencing. Well, his wife did. You see, he carved out 2.5 acres of his cattle ranch to build his home. My uncle is all about functionality, while his wife is all about aesthetics. And she really shined, building a beautiful, ranch-style family home. It’s a wonderful place to host the extended family.
Now remember, most of the property is split up into pastures by lines of barbed wire. And we don’t want little kids running around and horseplaying near those barbs. So, they used aluminum fencing to separate their homeland from the farmland. It was both aesthetically pleasing and practical. My aunt got to design her ideal fence while protecting children from barbed wire.
I’ve also seen rural homes do this for their in-ground pool. They leave their yard open but encased their pool for safety and aesthetics.
3) Traditional aluminum fencing is not practical for tiny, cramped neighborhoods. We would recommend aluminum privacy fencing instead.
You know those townhouses with tiny little backyards? The kind of backyards that are bricked over and only have enough space for a deck chair or two.
I have lived in a cramped little neighborhood like that before, and I wanted to make the most of my backyard. Putting up a traditional aluminum fence would be awkward. Because I was basically 6 feet away from my neighbors and would still be able to make eye contact through the pickets. Nothing against them of course, but we both deserve our privacy.
So I went with a privacy fence. These fences are still made of aluminum, so they’re lightweight and easy to maintain. However, instead of pickets, they have horizontal planks.
In Conclusion:
You’ve probably figured out that we used, “what you shouldn’t do” as a framing device to highlight what’s good about aluminum fencing.
However, we’ve also highlighted some considerations for your cost-benefit analysis. It’s a give and take. Maybe you think aluminum fencing isn’t practical for your big property. But it might pay for itself down the line with higher durability and less maintenance.