A fence in Southwest Florida lives a hard life. Sun, rain, wind, and the occasional hurricane all take their swings, and after enough years the thing's more gray than brown, leaning in spots and missing pickets where the last storm grabbed them. At some point patching it stops making sense and the entire run has to come out. Pulling a fence is straightforward, but it comes apart in stages, and each stage has its own kind of stubborn.
How hard is it to pull the pickets?
The pickets are the boards you see, the vertical part. These are the friendly part of the job. They're nailed or screwed to the rails, and on an old fence half the fasteners have already rusted loose, so they practically fall off on their own. A pry bar pops them off, and you stack them as you go. The catch is the count. A long fence has a lot of pickets, and once they're all off and piled up, you've got more wood than you'd guess. Old fence boards are light but they take up room, so the pile grows fast. Watch the nails sticking out of the rails while you work, because a rusty nail through a glove is a bad way to end the afternoon.
Why are the posts the hard part?
The posts are where the work hides. They're set deep, and a lot of them around here are sunk in concrete footings the size of a five-gallon bucket. Wood posts that have rotted at the ground line sometimes snap right off and leave the concrete behind. The stubborn ones need digging, a long pry bar, and a few words you wouldn't say in front of your mother. Each footing is a chunk of concrete to wrestle out and haul away, and concrete is heavy, so this is where the weight in the job really lives.
What size dumpster does a fence run take?
The pickets, rails, posts, and broken concrete footings all go the same place: gone. A roll-off dumpster in the driveway makes this easy because you can toss the wood as you pull it and drop the footings in as they come out. Just keep the concrete in mind on weight. Our rentals include a weight allowance of 2,000 to 4,000 pounds depending on size, and a load of footings can climb past that, so if you're pulling a long fence with a lot of concrete, send a photo and we'll help you figure out the right size and what the weight might run.
On sizing and cost, the 15-yard at $349.99 covers most residential runs, with 3,000 pounds, three days, and driveway protection included. The 20-yard at $424.99 gives you 4,000. Extra days are $25, overage is $100 a ton at the exact weight. Rough rule: wood and vinyl fill the box, concrete footings fill the allowance. A hundred feet of privacy fence with a footing every eight feet is a lot more weight than the same run of pickets alone.
If digging out concrete in July sounds like a bad afternoon, we get it. Our junk removal and cleanouts crew pulls fences, footings and all, and hauls the mess off so your fence guy can start clean. We cover our service area across Charlotte and Lee County, so wherever the old fence is leaning, we can get to it. And if you've got other storm debris piling up while you're at it, we can take that too.
Vinyl is worth calling out separately, since it went up all over the newer communities here. It comes apart faster than wood, the panels lift out of the posts instead of being nailed, and it weighs almost nothing. What it does do is take up room, because you can't really break panels down flat. A vinyl run usually needs more space and less weight allowance than a wood one of the same length, and if the HOA is replacing an entire stretch at once, that's a 20-yard conversation.
Timing matters more on a fence than on most jobs, because two crews need the same driveway. The fence installer wants the old run gone and the ground clear before they set new posts, and they usually have a day booked. Getting the debris out ahead of them rather than the same morning is what keeps that day from slipping. We run seven days a week and can often do same-day or next-day, so if your installer gives you a date, call us as soon as you have it.
Storm took a swing at your fence? Finish the job. Call or text (239) 412-3283, tell us how long the run is and whether there's concrete in the ground, and we'll tell you what it'll take to clear it.