Wrought Iron Fence Installation in Anderson, SC

Wrought iron fence installation, as the phrase is used today, means ornamental steel, and it is worth being straight about that from the first sentence.

True wrought iron, the low carbon iron worked by hand at a forge, has not been produced commercially in any quantity for decades. What we build is mild steel: solid bar or heavy wall hollow picket, welded into frames and finished against corrosion. It is heavier, stronger and more expensive than aluminum, and it will rust if you neglect it. That is the whole trade, and for some houses it is worth making.

What our wrought iron fence installation includes

Steel jobs carry more planning than a panel fence, because the gates are usually made for the opening rather than pulled off a rack.

• On-site measure of every opening and run, with the gate openings measured twice because steel does not stretch
• Agreement on the top treatment, flush, spear, arched or raked, and on picket profile and spacing
• Drawings for custom gates, including the arch height and where the hinge and latch posts land
• Utility locate request placed through the standard service before we break ground
• Posts sized for the load, with gate posts stepped up in wall thickness rather than matched to line posts
• Footings dug wide and deep for the weight, set in concrete and crowned so water runs away from the steel
• Field welds where a run has to follow a line no panel will follow, then primed and finished on the spot
• Gates hung with hardware rated for the leaf weight, adjusted, with stops and drop rods where needed
• Every scratch and cut end touched up before we leave the property
• Tear out and haul away of the old fence, old footings included

If the fence is carrying an automatic operator now or later, say so at the quote. A gate built for a motor needs a heavier hinge post, a stiffer frame and conduit run under the drive, and putting that in afterward means digging up a driveway you have already paid to have finished.

When wrought iron fencing is the right call

Steel costs more than aluminum and asks more of you afterward. These are the situations where it earns that.

• The house has real period detail, masonry piers, deep eaves, a wraparound porch, and a light aluminum fence would read as a stand in
• You want a driveway gate with an arched top and a matching pedestrian gate, built to the opening rather than cut down from stock
• The fence faces a street where a vehicle could leave the road, and you want something that bends rather than shatters
• You want finials, collars, rings, scrolls or a picket profile that does not exist in a catalog, all of which steel takes and aluminum largely does not
• You are matching an existing iron fence, an old gate, or ironwork set into a masonry wall
• A section has to carry an automatic operator, where the extra stiffness of steel does real work

It is the wrong call on a plain pool surround where the job is code compliance and moisture is constant, and on a long featureless property line nobody will look at closely. Powder coated aluminum does both of those better for less money, and we install a great deal more aluminum than steel for exactly that reason.

Ornamental steel or aluminum: an honest comparison

From thirty feet away on a summer evening these two look similar. Everything that separates them shows up in weight, in damage and in what you do about it ten years out.

Finish is the decision under the decision

Steel bought bare and painted on site is the cheap way in and the fast way back out again, because site paint sits on mill scale and lifts. A factory finish over a properly prepared surface is a different product entirely, and hot dip galvanizing before powder coat is the best of them, because it puts a zinc layer between the weather and the steel and a hard color layer over that. In a climate this wet the finish spec matters more than the picket profile.

Solid bar or hollow picket

Solid bar is heavier, stronger and considerably dearer, and it has nowhere for water to get in. Hollow picket in a heavy wall costs less and covers a lot more ground for the money, but the inside of a hollow picket is bare steel, so caps at the top and drainage at the bottom rail stop being a detail and start being the difference.

How we install a wrought iron fence

Steel is unforgiving of a layout error because nothing racks or flexes into place afterward. The sequence reflects that.

1. Measure the runs and every gate opening, walk the line, and mark corners, returns and grade changes
2. Settle the top treatment and whether the fence steps or rakes where the ground falls away
3. Draw the gates to the actual opening, including arch height, hinge side and swing direction
4. Request utility locates, then dig posts deeper and wider than an aluminum job needs, because the steel is heavier and a gate loads its hinge post hard
5. Set posts in concrete, plumbed to a string line, with the footing crowned so water sheds away from the base
6. Let the footings cure fully before any gate leaf hangs on a hinge post
7. Set panels, and field weld sections where the run has to follow an odd line, then prime and finish every weld
8. Hang gates, adjust hinges, set stops and drop rods, and check the swing clears through its full arc on uneven ground
9. Touch up every scratch and cut end, then walk the finished fence with you

That last step is not tidying. A scratch left open through one Upstate winter is next spring's rust bloom, and it is a two minute job on the day and a repaint later.

Steel fencing in Anderson County weather and code

Steel does not object to rain. What steel objects to is staying wet. Anderson has a humid subtropical climate with hot humid summers and no dry season, and takes about 48 inches of rain a year against a US average of 38, so a fence on the shaded side of a hedge or against a north facing tree line can go days without properly drying. That is where corrosion starts, and it is why we keep plantings back off the steel and specify drainage in hollow sections.

Underground it is the same story that ends every other fence here. Cecil series red clay is mapped across more than 10 million acres of the southeastern Piedmont, and it drains slowly, so a post hole holds water long after the storm has passed. Every failure we get called to on old ironwork is at the same spot: the bottom few inches of post, right at grade. Wide holes, proper concrete and a crowned footing so water runs away from the steel are the whole defense, and they cost a few dollars of concrete at install.

Then there is what your city allows. South Carolina has no statewide fence permit and no state height limit; those rules come from your city or county. The one that catches ornamental fencing most often in the City of Anderson is the sight triangle at driveways and intersections, where nothing forming a material impediment to visibility may sit between 42 inches and 10 feet above roadway grade. An open picket fence is usually no trouble. A masonry column with a heavy scroll panel over it, sitting right at the drive, can be. And if this fence is going around a pool, the state builds to the International Residential Code, which sets a minimum 48 inch barrier height with self closing, self latching gates, and that changes picket spacing, latch height and gate swing rather than just the fence line.

42 inches to 10 feetIs the band the City of Anderson protects inside a sight triangle, which is exactly the height an ornamental gate column wants to occupy.

What drives the price of a wrought iron fence

Steel quotes vary more than any other fence we price, because two jobs with the same footage can be completely different pieces of work.

• Linear feet, and how much of that is straight run against corners and returns
• Picket profile and spacing, with solid bar well above hollow section
• Height, since a taller panel needs a heavier rail and a deeper footing
• Ornament, because every finial, collar, ring and scroll is a part and a weld
• Gates, which are the largest single line on most iron estimates
• Arched, curved or raked tops, which are fabricated rather than assembled
• Finish, with hot dip galvanizing under powder coat costing more and lasting far longer
• Slope, because a welded steel panel racks very little and the run has to step instead
• Automatic operators, along with the heavier posts, conduit and power they require
• Tear out of an existing fence and the old footings under it

The fence around a hundred foot frontage is a known quantity. The arched double gate across the driveway in the middle of it is where the money actually goes, and that is the part worth spending time on at the quote.

Rust: managing it rather than pretending it away

Every steel fence is in a slow argument with water. You win it at install with the finish, and you keep winning it with about ten minutes of attention a year.

Where rust actually starts

Not in the middle of a picket. It starts at breaks in the coating, and the list is short and predictable: a string trimmer running along the bottom rail, a scratch from moving a panel into place, a weld that never got properly coated, and the inside of hollow pickets where water gets in the top and has nowhere to leave. Picket caps and drainage at the bottom rail are not decoration.

The annual walk

Once a year, ideally in the fall, walk the fence and look at three things: the bottom six inches of every post and picket, the welds, and the hinge and latch hardware. Anything showing orange gets wire brushed back to sound metal, primed and touched up the same day. Leaving it until spring turns a coin sized spot into a section.

Keeping the fence dry

Pull mulch and soil back off the bottom rail. Trim plantings so air moves through the fence rather than holding a damp mat against it. Keep the string trimmer away from the steel, which is the single most common source of the scratches that start the trouble. None of this is difficult, and it is the difference between a fence that gets handed down with the house and one that needs its bottom rail replaced, which is the hardest piece on the whole fence to replace.

Repairing and matching old ironwork

Steel is repairable in a way aluminum is not. A bent picket can be straightened, a damaged section can be cut out and a new piece welded in, and an old gate that has dropped can be squared and rehung. If you have an original fence on an older property with a missing run, bring us a photo and a measurement of the picket spacing and the rail sections. Matching an old profile exactly is not always possible, but getting close enough that nobody notices from the sidewalk usually is.