Melbourne fences take a beating from reactive clay, summer heat and winter rain. EasyFixed gives you an instant online price for fence repairs across Melbourne and surrounding suburbs. Tell us the length, the fence type and what is wrong, and get a fixed price inc GST in under a minute.
Replace rotted or broken posts without rebuilding the whole fence.
Repair or replace?
The rough rule is one third. If fewer than a third of the posts along a run have failed, repairing is cheaper and you keep the rest of the fence. Once you pass that point, the cost of staged repairs starts to approach a new fence that comes with a fresh twenty year life.
Check the posts, not the palings. Palings are cheap and easy to swap. Posts are the expensive part, because each one means digging out an old concrete footing and pouring a new one.
If you are unsure, price both in the calculator. Seeing the two numbers side by side usually makes the decision obvious.
Why posts fail in Melbourne
Melbourne's reactive clay soils swell in winter and shrink in summer, which works footings loose over time. Add a garden bed piled against the timber, or a sprinkler hitting the same spot every morning, and rot at ground level is almost guaranteed.
Storm damage is the other big one. A gust catches a solid fence like a sail, and the weakest post snaps at the concrete line.
When we replace a failed timber post we can set a galvanised steel post in its place, which removes the rot problem permanently for a small extra cost.
What the call out covers
A $150 minimum call out applies to repair jobs. It covers travel, tools and setup, and it is put towards the work rather than charged on top.
Small jobs are worth bundling. If you have one leaning post, two cracked palings and a gate that drags, booking them together avoids paying the minimum more than once.
Much of Melbourne sits on reactive clay. Clay swells in winter and shrinks through summer, which works fence footings loose over the years. It is the single biggest reason posts lean here, and why we set footings deeper than the bare minimum.
Most Melbourne councils allow a boundary fence up to 2.0 metres between neighbours without a planning permit, with lower limits on street frontages. Heritage overlays across the inner suburbs add extra rules, so check with your council before going tall at the front.
Hot dry summers and wet winters are hard on timber. Expect to re-stain a paling fence every three to five years, and expect the north and west facing runs to weather first.
Housing ranges from period terraces and weatherboards in the inner suburbs to newer estates further out. Timber paling and Colorbond dominate back boundaries, while aluminium slat and blade fencing is the common choice on modern front boundaries.
How do I know if my post needs replacing? Press the post at ground level. Soft, spongy or visibly rotten timber means the post should be replaced. Leaning or wobbly posts are also a sign.
Can you repair a few posts only? Yes. We routinely do single-post and small-batch repairs. A $150 minimum call-out fee applies.
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