Fence Company in Judson, SC

Anderson Fence Company is a fence company in Judson, SC, working a census designated place of 2,352 people packed into about eight tenths of a square mile. US 123, Easley Bridge Road, runs along the north side of it, and downtown Greenville is only two and a half miles up that road.

Judson grew around its mill. The plant opened in 1912, originally the Westervelt Mill and later renamed for Charles Judson, a Furman professor, and seventy five electrified houses went up for the workers. In the late 1930s the company began selling those village houses to the families renting them. Many of those houses are still standing and still lived in, which is why a Judson fence quote reads nothing like a quote for a new subdivision out east.

What a mill village lot does to a fence job

Village houses were laid out close together on a grid, on lots that were meant to be walked, not parked on. The practical effect is that total footage is low, so a whole yard here can be fenced for less than one long side run costs in a newer neighborhood. The catch is access. Side yards between two houses can be narrow enough that a truck is parked at the curb and everything comes down the side by hand.

The second catch is what is already in the ground. Many of these lines have been fenced two or three times since the houses were sold off. Old galvanized posts get cut at grade and left, and their concrete stays. When we replace a fence in Judson we pull the old footings rather than setting new posts a foot off line to dodge them, because a post set off line is visible for the life of the fence.

The third is the property line itself. Sixty years of fences, sheds and hedges on a grid of narrow lots means the visible line and the recorded line have often drifted apart. We set to the pins where they can be found, and where they cannot, we build inside what you can document rather than guessing in your favor.

Chain link, wood, and matching what is next door

Chain link does more real work in Judson than anywhere we build. On a small back yard where the job is containing a dog and marking a line, galvanized or black vinyl coated fabric is the lowest cost per foot we offer, it goes up fast and it does not shrink, cup or need staining. Black coated fabric visually disappears against a tree line, which is worth the small upcharge on a yard you actually sit in.

Where privacy is the point, treated pine is where most Judson budgets land, and cedar is the upgrade for the run that faces the street. On these lots a six foot privacy fence sits close to both houses, so the finished face question is not abstract. We settle it at the quote, and on a shared line shadowbox often ends the argument because both yards get the same view.

Matching matters here more than in most places. Houses on the same block came from the same plan, and a fence that ignores the neighbors reads as loud. We measure the existing picket width, rail spacing, post size and height next door before we quote, so the two runs sit together instead of competing.

2,352 people in 0.79 square milesJudson at the 2020 census, which is why the fence lines here are short, close together and almost always shared with somebody.

Work around the old mill

The mill itself ran until 2015 and has since been converted into the Judson Mill District, with apartments, a concert venue, a climbing gym and office space in the old buildings. That brings a second kind of fence work into a neighborhood that used to be all residential: screening for dumpsters and equipment, perimeter fence around parking and storage, and gates that get opened many times a day rather than twice a month.

Commercial work here is scheduled around the tenants, not around us. We stage material so a lot stays usable, and we hang gates on posts sized for the leaf, because a commercial gate that drags after one season is a gate somebody props open and stops using.