Fitting Chain-Link Mesh over 3.0 m High

The price-list item is measured per linear metre of fence. Fitting the mesh usually covers running out the line wires, unrolling and hanging the mesh, tensioning it, tying it to the wires and posts, and finishing it neatly at the end and corner posts. Setting the posts, concreting the footings, fitting struts, gates and pedestrian gates are normally separate items. When you compare quotes, check what each item actually includes. One quote often looks cheaper only because it leaves out the posts or the fixings.

A height over 3.0 m means you can almost never use a single standard width from one roll. Chain-link rolls are commonly sold up to about two metres high. Taller sizes are available as sports mesh, but suppliers do not always hold them in stock. In practice, crews often stack two widths and join them along a horizontal wire or rail. This joint is one of the main differences from lower fences.

The price list has two related items, each with its own page. The difference is not just a few metres of height. The whole way of working changes:

• Mesh up to 1.4 m: a low fence around a garden or between parts of a plot. The crew works from the ground. Three line wires, one width from the roll and two people are usually enough. A handy DIYer can do this job.
• Mesh up to 1.8 m: the usual boundary fence for a house. It still uses one width and three wires, and the top edge can be reached from the ground or a short stepladder. Posts and tensioning need more care, but the method is the same.
• Mesh over 3.0 m: pitches, courts, sites and enclosures. The crew works from a mobile scaffold tower or a platform. There are more wires, often a horizontal rail in the middle or at the top, and the mesh is built up from several widths. The crew needs at least three people. Posts are heavier, closer together and set deeper.

Why is there no step between 1.8 m and 3.0 m? A fence of around two metres is handled much like the 1.8 m variant, just with a taller width of mesh. Above three metres, garden-fence logic stops working. The mesh behaves more like a large sail and needs a rigid frame. If the fence only has to keep a dog in or block a view, choose a lower variant. If it has to stop a ball, stop an adult climbing over or contain animals that jump, you need this item.

Posts and footings

The mesh goes onto a finished supporting frame. The posts must be concreted in, plumb and in a straight line. The concrete needs time. Before anyone starts tensioning, it should usually cure for at least several days. The concrete supplier gives the exact time, and the weather affects it. Tensioning tall mesh puts heavy loads on the end posts. Young concrete moves under that load and the post leans for good.

Above three metres, crews use heavier tubular posts with thicker walls than standard garden posts. The posts usually stand closer together, roughly 2.5 m apart instead of the usual three metres, and the footings are deeper and wider. Corner, end and change-of-direction posts need struts. On long runs, crews also add struts to intermediate posts at regular intervals. The system supplier or a structural designer should set the exact sizes, especially where the fence has to resist wind load or ball impact.

Ground and access

• Keep a clear strip along the fence line so a mobile scaffold tower or platform can move along it.
• Level the ground under the fence, so the bottom edge of the mesh does not hang over hollows or dig into bumps.
• Remove shrubs, branches and old fencing in advance.
• If the fence runs along a boundary, have the line set out by a surveyor. Moving a tall fence a few centimetres later is much harder than moving a low one.

Permission and neighbours

Everyone around can see a tall fence. Rules on fences and walls vary by country and by local authority. They often depend on height, position, the local development plan and whether the fence is next to a road or on a shared boundary. Do not assume a tall fence is exempt. Check with your local building or planning authority before you order the work. For blocks of flats and shared land, the building management or owners' association decides. Talk to your neighbours early. A fence over three metres can shade their garden, and the crew may need access from their side.

Chain-link mesh from the roll

Woven chain-link is the most common choice for pitches and courts. At this height, crews use thicker wire and a smaller mesh opening, so the fence takes ball strikes and is harder to climb. It comes galvanised or plastic-coated. Galvanised mesh copes better with knocks during tensioning. Plastic-coated mesh looks better and resists corrosion for longer, but pliers and tensioning gear must not tear the coating. Wherever the coating is damaged, the wire starts to rust.

Welded mesh and panels

Welded mesh from the roll is stiffer. At this height it tends to ripple unless it is tensioned very carefully. Panel systems (2D and 3D panels) are used at this height mainly on sports grounds and commercial sites, where panels are stacked on system posts. Panels are not tensioned, though. They are bolted onto brackets, so they are a different price-list item. This page covers mesh that is tensioned between posts.

Line wires, rails and fixings

A low fence manages with three line wires. Above three metres, crews usually add more, roughly one every 60 to 80 cm of height, depending on the system supplier. Sports fences often have a horizontal tube (a rail) instead of, or alongside, the top wire. The rail keeps the fence in shape and stops it bellying out. You also need tension bars, which thread through the mesh at the end posts, wire tensioners, clips and tying wire. The fixings should have the same finish as the mesh. Galvanised clips on green coated mesh look odd, and mixing different metals can speed up corrosion.

1. Check the frame. The installer checks that the posts are plumb and in line, the struts are firm and the concrete has cured. A crooked post gets fixed now, not after the mesh is up.
2. Run out the line wires. The wires are fixed at the end posts, passed through or along the intermediate posts and tightened bit by bit with tensioners. On a tall fence the wires are tightened evenly from the bottom up, so no post gets pulled to one side.
3. Fit the rails. If the system uses a horizontal rail, it goes into the post clamps before the mesh.
4. Unroll and hang the first width. The roll is laid out along the fence. A tension bar is threaded through the mesh at the start and fixed to the end post. The lower width is hung on the wires first. With two widths, crews usually start from the bottom.
5. Tension the mesh. At the far end of the run, the mesh is pulled tight with a second tension bar and a pulling tool. At this height the crew pulls at several points at once. Otherwise the mesh only tightens in the middle and stays slack at the top and bottom.
6. Join the widths. The upper width is hung so it meets the lower one along a horizontal wire or rail. The two are joined by weaving in a wire or by close tying, so no gap opens that a ball or a hand could get through.
7. Tie to the wires and posts. The mesh is tied to the wires at regular, fairly close intervals and to every post. Sparse ties are the most common reason tall mesh bellies out later.
8. Finish and tidy. At corners and ends the mesh is finished off. Cut wire ends are bent inwards so nobody catches clothing or a hand on them. The bottom edge is checked along the full length.

Working at height

The top edge of the mesh is high enough that a fall means serious injury. Working off an ordinary ladder leaning on a post is not safe, because the ladder slips easily when the mesh is pulled. Professional crews work from a mobile scaffold tower or a powered access platform and use fall protection. In strong wind, tall mesh is not fitted at all. An unrolled width acts like a sail and can pull a person off, scaffold and all.

How long it usually takes

Tall mesh takes much longer to fit than the lower variants. Every metre has more wires and more ties, often a joint between widths, and the scaffold has to keep moving. An experienced crew usually fits a straight run around a small pitch in a few days. A site with many angles on a slope can take a good deal longer. On top of that comes the curing time of the footings, which cannot overlap with the mesh work. A sensible schedule leaves a gap between concreting the posts and tensioning, plus spare time for bad weather.

Site conditions

Several things affect how hard the job is, and so the cost, more than you might expect:

• A long, straight run is the simplest. The crew gets into a rhythm and tensions long lengths in one go.
• Many corners and changes of direction mean many terminations, tension bars and fresh tensioning. Short runs go slowly.
• A slope makes everything harder. The mesh has to be cut and shaped, the scaffold is hard to steady, and keeping the bottom edge at an even height above ground is fiddly.
• Poor access, such as a fence tight against a wall, water or a neighbour's building where no scaffold fits, slows the work a lot.
• Two or more widths stacked add joining, which is slow and has to be accurate.
• Badly set posts from another firm often mean the installer must make repairs first, or the mesh will never sit tight and even.
• Weather: wind and frost stop or slow the work, and plastic-coated mesh gets more brittle in the cold.

Coordinating with other trades

Tall mesh rarely stands on its own. Finish digging and concreting nearby first, so no machines have to work around the new fence. On pitches, the surface (artificial grass or asphalt) is often laid first and the mesh comes after. Then the scaffold can damage the new surface, so agree the order and protection in advance.

If you plan to hang windbreak netting or advertising banners on the fence later, or let climbing plants cover it, say so before the posts are designed. Bare mesh lets most of the wind through. A covered surface over three metres high catches a lot of wind, and posts sized for bare mesh can bend or pull out. Ice and snow sticking to fine mesh cause the same problem.

Gates are usually fitted before the mesh or at the same time, so the mesh can finish on the gate posts. Cables, pitch floodlights and cameras on the posts are a job for a qualified electrician only. Before anyone digs footings, have underground services located and marked. If a gas pipe is hit during digging and you smell gas, leave the area and call the local emergency number or 112.

• Weak tension. After the first summer the mesh bellies out between posts and is bent out of shape for good by ball strikes.
• Sparse ties to the wires. The mesh shifts, the upper width pulls away from the lower one and a gap opens.
• Tensioning into green concrete. The end posts lean inwards, the whole fence goes slack, and fixing it means taking the run apart.
• Missing struts. A corner post slowly bends. Above three metres this happens faster than on a low fence.
• Badly joined widths. A visible horizontal ripple or a gap across the middle of the fence that a ball can get through.
• Damaged plastic coating. Rust spots appear on the wire over time, especially where the mesh was gripped with pliers.
• Sharp wire ends. On a playing area this is a safety risk, as children easily cut themselves on a protruding wire.
• Too big a gap at the bottom. A dog, a ball or a child slips under, which defeats the point of an enclosure or pitch fence.

Fitting mesh over three metres is not a job for a layperson. It means working at height with a heavy surface that the wind can grab. What you can do safely is prepare the site and check the frame from the ground before the crew arrives. This saves the crew time and catches problems early.

1. Confirm with the local authority, the building management or the owners' association that the fence is allowed at this height and position.
2. Agree the line with your neighbours and have a surveyor mark the boundary if the fence runs along it.
3. Clear shrubs, branches, rubbish and old fencing from a strip wide enough for a scaffold tower on the side the crew will work from.
4. Fill obvious hollows and flatten bumps along the line, so the bottom edge can sit at an even height.
5. Write down the date the footings were concreted and compare it with the curing time the concrete supplier recommends.
6. Check the posts from the ground with a long spirit level and sight along the line to spot any post out of plumb or out of line.
7. Check that every corner, end and change-of-direction post has its struts and that none of them moves when pushed.
8. Tell the installer about anything you found and about any plans for netting, banners or climbing plants.

Walk the whole length of the fence on both sides and look at it from further away, where unevenness shows most clearly. Press the mesh by hand at several points and different heights. It should give evenly and spring back. At handover, check the following:

• Posts stand plumb and in line, and none has leaned after tensioning
• Mesh is evenly tight over its full height, with no bellies or ripples
• The joint between widths is continuous, with no gaps or visible kink
• Mesh is tied to every wire and post at close intervals
• Line wires are tight and tensioners are fully done up
• Corner and end posts have struts and are firm
• Rails, where part of the system, sit firmly in their clamps
• Wire ends are bent inwards and nothing sticks out
• The plastic coating is not torn or scraped
• The bottom edge keeps the agreed distance from the ground along the full length
• The area is tidy, with no offcuts of wire or mesh that could injure someone or damage a mower