Winter is coming, and while that may sound ominous, it may also just be the perfect time to get out of your house and do a little yard improvement. Now, obviously, if you’ve got piles of snow, then this may not be the best time to be installing a fence, but if you’re in one of the areas where the weather has turned cold, the plants have become dormant, and the yard is flecked with a few fallen leaves over browning grass, then now is exactly the time you want to look into purchasing a new fence.
Why buy a new fence during the winter? There are several reasons, but we’ve broken it down into three main ones: first, installation is faster, second, it’s easier on the yard, and third, now is the perfect time to prepare for summer.
Faster Installation
Why is fence installation faster in the winter? There are a lot of reasons, but they mainly come down to availability and seasonality of the business. In the summer everyone is busy building and maintaining their yards, improving this and fixing that, but in the winter most people have put away their tools for the season. This means that you’re much more likely to get the help that you need, when you need it. Fencing a yard can be a one-person job if you must, but it’s far easier with multiple people, and the more you can get, the quicker you’ll have the job done. If you’ve got teens or grown kids, recruit them into the process–they’ll have fewer activities in the winter to keep them away. If you’ve got neighbors, odds are good that they’ll have more time on their hands during the winter weekends, too.
The same is true if you’re hiring professionals to do the job. It’s far easier to get a work crew on site in the winter than in the summer because demand is so much lower. Because of that, not only will they be able to work on shorter notice, but they’ll be able to devote more people to the project (so it’ll go faster) and there’s a good chance that the price will be lower, too, because of the simple laws of supply and demand.
On a completely different point, but still referring to faster installation, having steady cold temperatures can make for an easier digging process and cement pouring. The ground is generally drier, and it’s much less common to have a rainstorm mess up your job. Snow is a problem in some areas, but that doesn’t soak the ground as much as a good rain does.
Easy on the Yard
Purchasing a fence in the winter is also a good idea for the installation process. Your plants–the hedges or bushes or roses that line the perimeter of your yard–are mostly dormant and have been trimmed back. Therefore, when you get in to work on the fence, you won’t be smashing this plant or stepping on that one. The gardens are either bare or cut down to their winter nubs.
Compare this to putting in a fence during the summer: you’re fighting every large hydrangea and lilac bush to try to get the fence into the right place, make sure it’s level–just getting measurements is a hassle. And when it comes time to dig post holes, you are either fighting against those same bushes, or you’re trampling on flowers in the garden.
All of this can be avoided by putting in a fence during the winter. Trees are tied back, bushes can be wrapped and trimmed. You don’t need to worry about where you’re rolling that wheelbarrow, because there aren’t growing flowers in the flower bed.
This is also true of building fences on slopes and wooded areas, even in non-landscaped areas. First, you don’t have to contend with the mud of spring rain, but second, with leaves down and your yard much more visible, you can make better judgments about where and how to install your fence. Line of sight is better, and you get a broader picture of the scope of your project. You’ll be able to see the whole thing at once, be sure that it meets your expectations, and confirm that this is the fence that you want–all of which would be harder if not impossible when all your greenery is out and in full bloom.
Get Ready for the Summer
Perhaps the best reason to purchase a fence in the winter is so that you will be ready for spring and summer. You don’t want to spend the best months of the year with the yard torn up. You don’t want to waste summer vacation weekends on installing a fence when you could, instead, be focused on playing in the backyard pool with the kids, playing fetch with the dog, or just relaxing on the back patio with a cool drink and a book.
Winter is when the world goes to sleep, but if you’re able to stay awake during it and make proper use of those winter months, then you’ll be far better positioned to seize the moment every day the rest of the year. Just because the sky is gloomy in December doesn’t mean that you need to stay inside (though that fireplace may be calling). Think of how ‘Summer You’ will appreciate the efforts of ‘Winter You’ if you have spent the dark months of winter preparing to have the best summer ever.
