SF Bay Area Landscaping and Fencing Help

May 30, 2021 7:16 PM

Does anyone have landscaper recommendations for the Bay Area? I'm in the mid-Peninsula. I have a design but my landscaper is backed up until next year. Bonus question: Do you have an idea of current fencing prices?

I've got a yard that is not super pleasant right now, and a professional design to re-do it. Unfortunately everyone, including the designer, was way backed up and I'm now looking at 2022 for a process that I started in 2020.

Separately from that I just got a price for a fence replacement that almost put me in tears. It's from a reputable company and I know prices are skyrocketing, so it may just be what it is (which is much higher than the average per-foot cost from most online calculators I tried.)

posted by mark k to Home & Garden (5 answers total)

Totally different countries/regions but for what it’s worth the cost of lumber has sky rocketed in BC, Canada (and across the country!) and I doubt online calculators can even keep up. My guess based on trade is that much of SF’s lumber is coming from BC anyway....
posted by Juniper Toast at 7:28 PM on May 30, 2021

Lumber prices are through the roof. Not 50% higher; more like 300% higher. If you can wait until things calm down, you can probably save a lot of money.
posted by mr_roboto at 7:54 PM on May 30, 2021

In Wisconsin, at the start of the pandemic, we got a quote for replacing our existing wooden backyard fence. It took the rest of 2020 to get the fence installed, just before the snow flew. 80'x100' (apox., little bigger) backyard of 6' tall vinyl privacy fence went for about $11,000. Delays of supplies and pandemic was blamed by the contractor. Oh, and power company guy (who lives across the street) got angry at me, when the contractor cut an underground power line to a street light. They dug up my yard to repair.
posted by baegucb at 9:10 PM on May 30, 2021

We got our yard done by Earthcare a couple years ago and we've been very happy. It's a low-water use setup which has been great given that we're back in a drought.
posted by GuyZero at 10:33 AM on May 31, 2021

Lumber prices are stupidly high right now - even in Washington state, when I drive past a lumber yard every day on I5 that's full of both trees and dressed lumber. The sudden demand is unreal, it's not even a seasonal upshoot. There's no real way to get around it, unless you go for low-grade lumber...but then you'll have a fence that rots out in a few years and you'll have to replace it all anyway.

You might try doing a quarter of your fencing job this year in October, and try to schedule the rest for next summer. Hopefully by this time next year, supply chains will have been rebuilt, even taking the ongoing pandemic into account. (Covid is not done kicking our asses.)
posted by Tailkinker to-Ennien at 10:54 AM on May 31, 2021