Chain Link Fence Installation in Mauldin, SC

Chain link fence installation in Mauldin is replacement work far more often than it is new work. The city was rechartered in 1969, five subdivisions were annexed in 1972, and I-385 filled in most of the rest, so the housing stock and its original fencing share a birthday. A galvanized fence put up with a house in 1975 has now stood through about fifty years of Piedmont rain.

Fifty year old chain link rarely fails all at once, which is the useful part. Fabric rusts at the ties and bellies between posts while the pipe underneath it is still sound, or the reverse: good fabric on posts that have gone at the ground line. The first thing we do at a Mauldin quote is push on the posts and find out which of those you have. That visit is free, on site, seven days a week.

Working out what is worth keeping on an old Mauldin fence

Galvanized pipe of that era is often heavier than the residential pipe sold today, and zinc on a post that has drained well can still have years in it. We test the line by hand, post by post. A terminal that moves at the base, or one that rings hollow and flexes at grade, is done. One that does not move is a post you already own.

Where the pipe holds, fabric replacement is a fraction of a full rebuild. New fabric stretched and tied onto existing posts changes how the yard looks and how the fence works, and going to black vinyl coated at the same time is the cheapest visual upgrade available on a 1970s back yard.

• Fabric rusted along the bottom while the pipe is still solid: replace fabric only
• Top rail crushed by a limb, posts intact: replace the rail section and retension
• Whole run bellied out in the middle: usually lost tension, not lost fence
• Posts moving at grade on two or three positions: reset those, keep the rest
• Fabric and posts both gone: full removal and a new line is the honest answer

Pulling a 1970s footing out of Cecil clay

When a post has to come out, the concrete collar around it comes with it. Five decades of clay settling around that footing has locked it in, and clay that has been undisturbed that long is dense. Pulling one leaves a hole larger than the new post needs, so it gets backfilled and compacted before anything is set in it rather than filled with fresh concrete around a floating post.

The second complication was not there when the first fence went in. Those yards were open ground in 1975 and they are shaded now, so the old post line runs through root systems that grew up around it. Chain link helps here, because a pipe post needs a narrower hole than a wood post and a line post can shift several inches without anybody noticing.

Then there is the line the fence stands on. A boundary that has carried a fence for fifty years is the boundary everyone on both sides has used, whatever the plat says. We rebuild on the existing line unless you tell us otherwise, and when there is doubt we say so before the concrete goes in rather than after.

More freedom here than in the newer Golden Strip

Most of Mauldin's residential neighborhoods went in before the modern covenant, so silver galvanized chain link is still an ordinary and accepted fence on these streets. In a subdivision written twenty years later it would be prohibited outright. That is worth money, because galvanized is the lowest cost per foot of anything we install.

We still check. A few developments here do have active associations, and the city sets its own fence rules rather than deferring to the county, so a street facing run gets confirmed before it is priced.

Median age 39.2Describes Mauldin at the 2020 census, a settled city of 24,724 people where the fences went in with the houses and are now reaching the end of their second life.

What a chain link fencing job in Mauldin includes

A Mauldin chain link quote covers the old fence as well as the new one.

• Post by post assessment of the existing line before anything is quoted
• An honest split between what we can keep and what has to be replaced
• Removal of old fabric, rail and posts, with buried footings pulled out
• Old post holes backfilled and compacted rather than left soft
• Utility locate request, plus flagging of irrigation added since the first fence
• New fabric in galvanized or black vinyl coated, machine tensioned and tied
• Gates rehung square with hardware sized to the leaf, not reused if it is worn
• All old fence material hauled off the property

The full breakdown of materials, process and pricing factors lives on our chain link fence installation page. This page covers what changes in Mauldin.