Why Use Universe Fencing Brisbane East?

Every fencing contractor will tell you they're licensed, insured and do quality work. Most of them are. So here's the more useful version: the specific decisions that make a fence last out here, and what we do about each one.

Footings sized to the soil, not the minimum

Much of the Redlands sits on reactive clay. It swells after a wet week and shrinks back in a dry month, and a post set in a shallow or undersized hole moves with it. Two years later the fence has a wave in it and nobody can work out why.

We dig deeper than the minimum and size the footing to the soil we actually find when we start digging, with the hole belled out at the base so the footing can't lift. It's more concrete and more time, and it's the single biggest determinant of whether a fence is still straight in a decade.

Hardware specified for salt air

This is the one that catches people out near the water. Aluminium panels won't corrode, Colorbond sheets hold up well, but the fixings, hinges and latches are a different story. 304 stainless starts pitting within a few seasons in bayside salt air. Bright steel nails bleed rust streaks down new palings inside two summers.

On jobs near the bay we use 316 marine-grade stainless hardware and hot-dip galvanised fixings as standard. You will never see this on the finished fence. You'll notice it when the pool gate still swings properly in ten years instead of seizing.

Post spacing that accounts for the wind

A 1.8m fence on an exposed boundary at Manly or Wellington Point is effectively a sail, and the load goes straight into the posts. Stretching post centres is the quietest way to take money out of a quote, and it's why some fences come down every storm season while the one next door doesn't.

We don't stretch spacing to win a price. If we're more expensive than another quote, this is often part of the reason, and we'd rather explain it than match them.

Drainage on every retaining wall

Retaining walls fail because of water, not soil weight. Saturated clay behind a wall is far heavier than drained clay and adds water pressure on top. Nearly every leaning wall we're asked to replace either had no drainage or had drainage that silted up because nobody wrapped the aggregate in geotextile.

Every wall we build gets aggregate backfill, geotextile, and agricultural drain to a proper outlet. It's invisible and it's the whole job. The retaining walls page goes into the detail.

An excavator and a crew, so scale isn't a problem

Most fencing businesses are two people and a ute, which is fine for twenty metres of paling fence and much less fine for an acreage boundary, a failed retaining wall, or a site that needs clearing first.

We own an excavator and run a large team. Concrete footings come out in an afternoon rather than over a weekend. A long run gets built by a crew rather than a pair. Demolition and construction happen in one engagement instead of you coordinating two contractors and two waiting periods. If a job has been quoted as too big or too awkward elsewhere, that's usually the gap.

Fixed prices after we've seen it

We quote on site, and once the number is agreed it's the number. The reason we won't price over the phone is that the cost drivers out here aren't visible in a description: the fall across the boundary, what the soil is doing, whether the machine can get down the side, how close you are to salt air, and what's coming out before anything goes in.

A cheap phone quote that varies upward on day three isn't a cheap quote. It's an expensive one with a delay built in.

QBCC licensed, and the number is checkable

Licence 15433253, with full insurance. The QBCC register is public, so search the number rather than taking our word for it. Licensing matters for more than reassurance: it's what gives you recourse under statutory warranty if something goes wrong, which an unlicensed operator can't offer no matter how good their intentions.

One contractor for the whole job

Timber, Colorbond, aluminium and glass fencing, gates and automation, retaining walls and removal, all in-house. That matters when a job involves more than one of them, which it often does: a retaining wall with a Colorbond fence on top, a pool barrier combined with a boundary, or a removal followed straight away by a rebuild. One crew, one price, one point of contact for the lot.

We'll tell you when the answer is no

We decline work and we talk people out of things. If glass won't look right on a stepped surround, we'll say aluminium is the better call even though it's a smaller job. If your wall only needs a drainage fix rather than a rebuild, we'll tell you. If we find suspect asbestos sheeting we stop and send you to a licensed removalist.

That costs us the occasional job and it's the reason a decent share of our work is repeat customers and referrals.

Part of an established group

Brisbane East is the bayside branch of Universe Fencing, which also trades as universefencing.com.au and Universe Fencing Brisbane. So you're dealing with an established business with a track record, not a new operator finding its feet. More on that here.

Have a look and decide

Request a quote or call 0485 064 951 and we'll come out. Compare us against whatever else you've been quoted, and ask the other contractor about footing depth and hardware grade while you're at it. The answers tell you a lot.