How to choose the right fence company in Los Angeles - South Bay area?

How to choose your fence company in Los Angeles - South Bay area?

It's recommended to receive 2 - 3 quotes when looking to replace your fence. When searching for fence companies, options can be so many and overwhelming.

You can ask these filtering questions, which will help narrow down the options.

One, is the company appropriately licensed for the trade? For fencing, the trade is C13.

For liability, reliability, material quality, and many other reasons, you should avoid using unlicensed individuals at all costs.

During your search, once you remove the unlicensed from your options, things will become much easier from this point, selecting the right 2 -3 companies that you should request a quote from.

Before we can talk about the second and other options, we should talk about what type of licensed fence contractors you will come across.

When it comes to licensed contractors, you will see two standard options, first is one with location, and a second is a man with a truck and a helper or, often time one man does it all.

Physical address with an office showroom and fabrication shop; this option seems to be more reliable for most customers as you can visit and see the fence options in person; second, you know where you can always find them should you need them, overall a physical location makes a company to be more trustworthy and reliable from a customers point of view.

Some customers can see a downside of a physical location, which will be overhead, and the cost of the fixed overhead is included in the overall fence cost, but this cost can also be associated with having insurance for your project; what do we mean by this? a physical location gives you the ability to walk-in and talk about your project's problems that company installed should there be any issues down the road, where with an individual with a truck and helper, can be hard to get hold of when they are fully paid for the job. Still, there are some questions or problems with the finished project.

In reality, the physical address doesn't always mean your cost will be more from that company because of their overhead.

Companies with a location, and we are not talking about just an office but an actual warehouse with inventory, will have a direct connection. With all big suppliers and fence material manufacturers, and will always buy the materials first-hand and pay the much lower direct wholesale cost because of the ability to stock it and order more truckloads, so the overall material cost, plus overhead plus labor combined is your direct cost and should be less expansive.

A man with a truck type of operation in the fencing industry has several options to buy the materials; the first and most common option is the big box stores, where quality is far less, which is another subject; the second is to buy from a reliable source a fencing store like Torrance Fence company or other fence stores that do sale their material to other contractors, in any of this case the contractor will end up paying a retail price and will not have too many options when it comes to customizing. The 3rd option they have is to purchase from suppliers who import mainly vinyl fence materials direct from china; unfortunately, for an average person, this will be near impossible to know the origin of the product as made in china vinyl fence materials look just like the one made in USA, they just cost a lot less and unfortunately all test and study shoes that they are still far behind from USA made fence materials, when it comes to UV protection and fading.

If you received a quote for a vinyl fence from an individual that seems too low compared to other quotes you have received, question the store name where they have purchased and the brand name of the products, it's easy to verify that brand name and if the product they're using belongs to that brand, we will talk about this in another blog.

Second, how many years of experience does the contractor have? Fencing is a specialty trade and requires skills to understand the local codes, lay out the job properly, install it correctly and deal with unexpected issues that can arise. The more experienced companies will be better prepared than one who just started the business.

Who will be doing your actual job? Will it be someone from the company, or will they subcontract it to a small outfit? It’s essential to understand who will be installing and taking care of your project. That way, you can know that professionals handle your job.

Torrance Fence company will never use subcontractors. We recommend you ensure a company's foreman is installing your fence; it's also important to know how long that foreman has been with the company.

Third, does the company offer a warranty? Ask for specifics of the warranty, including: how long, what is covered, and what isn’t. Read the fine print to make sure that the warranty is a good one.

Fourth, what type of materials will be used? Ask the contractor if they use quality materials from trusted or generic brands you could purchase at your local big box stores. Quality matters, and cheap doesn't always mean better in this case.

A fence job that will last a long time and serve its purpose must be built right from the beginning. What are the two most important things to ensure a top-quality final installed fence project?

The life of your fence depends on o n the material by 50% and installation by the other 50%; a good material installed incorrectly will be blown down with the next strongest winds, and other way around, regardless of how fantastic the installation team is with a bad material your fence has no chance to withstand harsh weather conditions.

These to components are equally important; good material also means a good brand with a reputation that stands behind the name and has been around for a long time. And a good installation team means a good overall company team with other team members to help the process, such as project managers, office managers, crew supervisors, foremen, helpers, etc.

This picture is an excellent example of good quality material with bad craftsmanship technics for installation. I came down after seeing its first 35+pmh.

A vinyl fence should be able to withstand a direct wind of 120 - 135 mph.

Finally, ask for references from their recent projects to know precisely what you get with your purchase.

A good fence company should be able to provide you with references from their past customers who can speak about the quality of materials and installation.

And one you can trust should have references near you that you can drive and see; if they can't provide anything within 4 - 5 miles from your house, you need to question how long the company has been around.

It’s essential to research when selecting the right fencing contractor for your project. It will help ensure that you get what you pay for in terms of a quality job, high-end.