Building a new garden/side boundary - hedge/fence/wall?

Hi gang,

I'll try and keep it short and sweet!

Got a hedge that's planted along the boundary running beside the house from front to back - it's about 8 metres long.

Current hedge has to go as it's overgrown and unmanageable.

Rest of the back gardens are walled up (6ft tall) to where the hedge starts (at back of house)

Thinking of moving the side gate up to the front of the house and perhaps replacing the hedge with a wall. This would give a solid boundary and secure the area alongside the house. It would also give me a little more space as the current hedge is about 2 metres wide (!)

Any reasons why I shouldn't do this? It's not beside another property or road (just a strip of grass in a residential area). There is a covenant in place but from what I can see it only stipulates no walls/fences etc across the front of the property (open-plan type front gardens where I am). 70's built end of terrace for what it's worth

Existing wall is single skin, 6ft tall with piers every 8ft. Seems to be doing fine.

Other than cost (7.8m long 1.8m high of brickwork/footings etc) can anyone think of a downside to this? I can't see it being a problem aesthetically as if the hedge wasn't there people would just be looking at the brickwork of the side of the house - and I guess the new wall would be about a metre lower than the old hedge - and much neater, same as the rest of the garden wall.

Only other options I can think of would be to replace the hedge - but another leylandi will take as much maintenance as this old one. And most other types will take ages to grow - and unlikely to be as secure/solid boundary as a wall. I guess I could build a fence - but for the cost of a decent fence would I not be better off with a wall - at least it will match the rest of the boundaries and should last me out.

I'm roughly estimating 14 square metres of visible brickwork - plus the piers and whatever is not visible from the footings. So 1000 bricks or so? I can cut the old hedge down and dig out roots/dig (and prepare?) footings which should cut out some of the groundwork.

Any guesstimates of what this should cost in the Surrey area? I'm guessing a brickie plus labourer, 3/4 days work or so? Maybe £750-1000 labour and the same for materials or so. £1.5-2k in my head sounds okay for a 26ft single skin wall built well. I think much more than £2k and I'll have to leave the idea - maybe stick with a hedge or fence as I've other work that needs doing too.

Any advice or suggestions most welcomed

Will

A wall at 1800mm high needs to be 9'' wide Will, as well as having a 440mm pillar at either end, so the costs would be arond the £3,000 mark.

Hiya,

You need to think more about the foundations - specifically removing the tree roots, disposing of them and backfilling, if the trees have been in place for a few years there will be an extensive and far reaching root network

Could add significantly to your costs and timescale.

We bought some of our neighbours garden last year and had a pig of a job getting a few (5) tree roots out. They were much deeper and much wider than we anticipated. Wasn't helped by the fact we had to do it all with hand tools- no mini digger access.

Anyway just a thought, hope it helps.

F

will_uk said:

Only other options I can think of would be to replace the hedge - but another leylandi will take as much maintenance as this old one. And most other types will take ages to grow - and unlikely to be as secure/solid boundary as a wall.

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Plant a pyracantha hedge. Robust, easy to grow, fast growing, and anybody who tries to go over or through it will be cut to ribbons.

To be honest I'm not too worried about removing the tree roots - I took a few down from the front in the past and just did one a day after work in the spring. They seem to tap down mainly which isn't as bad as I first thought.

If the soil needs compacting I've got a wacker plate and a large pile of scalpings left over from a paving job a while back which could go under the footings before any concrete.

I did notice that most walls of this height seem to be double skin, but bearing in mind that the rest of the walls running all the way round the back garden are single skin with piers can I not have this extension of the wall built in the same way as the others?

I'm not so worried about the security aspect as the whole side of the house is currently ungated and hasn't been an issue - it's a pretty quiet area and it's not beside a road or path etc. I hate pyrocantha having had to remove loads of it from the back garden when I first moved in! I just want a near boundary where I can also leave stuff occasionally - next to the wheelie bins, just garden stuff like hose and watering cans or stuff that I'm planning for the tip run etc

will_uk said:

I hate pyrocantha having had to remove loads of it from the back garden when I first moved in!

Click to expand...

Then you know what an excellent security hedge it would make

Yep - and also more likely to cut myself than any intruder to what is currently an exposed area

All I'm looking to do is make neat/permanent solution to securing the boundary and allowing a side area to be gated off to keep the wheelie bins etc in. It's generally a pretty quiet area around here anyway.

Can anyone give me the lowdown regarding the type of wall construction though? Ie single skin + piers or double thickness? Only asking 'cos all the other walls in the garden are single skin with piers at 8ft gaps as far as I can tell - and they're getting on for forty years old without falling over. I'd probably go for double skin if it was a totally new wall, but as I'm adding to the existing wall it seems strange to have two different types joined in that way.

I'm not in the building trade but up here - NE Scotland - every boundary wall I've seen is single leaf with piers, don't know why you'd go double skin unless it's for aesthetic reasons.

HTH