Chatsworth fencing questions and answers

Installed, the material decides most of it. Chain link comes in at $18 to $40 a linear foot, ranch rail at $18 to $38, wood at $30 to $60, vinyl at $40 to $70, and wrought iron at $50 to $120. Three things move a job within its own range: how long the run is, what grade of material you settle on, and how much of the post line lands on sandstone that has to be drilled out.

Nothing undercuts chain link at $18 to $40 a linear foot or ranch rail at $18 to $38, and both earn their keep on a back line, a pet run, or a pasture perimeter. Once the goal is a solid six foot privacy wall, wood carries the better value, and cedar across a 150 foot Chatsworth run tends to land in the $4,500 to $9,000 bracket installed. Vinyl at that same height asks more of you at the start and gives back the upkeep you would otherwise owe a wood fence.

Ordinarily not, provided the fence stays at or below the allowed height, in which case the City of Los Angeles asks for no building permit at all. The cases that do require one are a fence over six feet, a retaining wall holding back soil, and any work in the public right of way, and all three go through LADBS. Hillside and fire-zone parcels carry a second layer, since grading and defensible-space rules can add requirements of their own.

City of Los Angeles rules set the residential ceiling at six feet through the side and rear yards, dropping to roughly three and a half feet across the required front yard. Out on the flatter parcels, a parcel forty feet across or more can take eight in the side and rear. The closer you sit to the Santa Susana foothills, the likelier your parcel falls inside a designated Hillside Area, where six is the ceiling and stays there. A corner lot adds a visibility triangle close to the street, where height is held down so drivers keep a clear sightline. Build above six feet anywhere on the parcel and a permit enters the picture. Confirm the current code against your own address before material is ordered.

As a rule, yes. The Good Neighbor Fence Act, found at California Civil Code section 841, begins from the presumption that adjoining owners carry the reasonable cost of a boundary fence in equal shares. What the statute asks of you first is notice, at least 30 days of it in writing before construction, setting out the problem, the fence you propose, and what you expect it to cost. Two things get left off most notices: a line saying the law presumes an even split, and the dates you intend to build. Any other division stands so long as both owners put it on paper.

Chatsworth sits on Chatsworth Formation sandstone, the same rock that forms Stoney Point, and boulder outcrops run under the yards along the foothill edge. A post hole often hits rock a foot or two down, so reaching honest footing depth means switching to a rock drill or coring bit. It is the hardest digging of any city in the valley, and it is why we quote footings on site.

Material decides this one as well. Cedar and redwood give roughly 15 to 20 years when they get a seal coat every few years, and chain link keeps pace at a similar 15 to 20. Ranch rail follows whichever it is built from, wood or vinyl. Vinyl itself holds 20 to 30 years or beyond with next to no attention, and wrought iron can run past 40 years so long as the powder coat is kept up. What wears a wood fence down in this town is the hard sun above it and the dust the wind carries in.

For the horse-keeping acreage around Twin Lakes and the foothill edges, a three-rail fence with no-climb horse wire is the standard, with pipe corral in pens and high-traffic corners. The rail gives a safe visible line, the woven wire keeps a hoof from going through and a predator from coming under, and steel handles the spots a wood rail would not survive.