Aluminum Fence Installation in Mauldin, SC

Aluminum fence installation in Mauldin is mostly pool work and mostly replacement, and those two overlap more often than you would expect. The subdivisions here filled in through the 1970s and 1980s after I-385 went through, and a pool dug in that era was normally enclosed by whatever fence came with the house.

Mauldin had 24,724 residents at the 2020 census, nineteenth largest in the state, and the housing stock and its original fencing are the same age. Forty years on, the run is tired and the gate is the part that has failed first. Around water that matters more than anywhere else in a yard.

A 1980s pool inside a 1980s fence

The code South Carolina builds to is the International Residential Code. Under it a residential pool barrier stands at least 48 inches, and the gates serving it have to be self closing and self latching. A wood gate that has hung for thirty summers is rarely either one. The spring is gone or was never fitted, the latch has been shimmed at some point, and the hinges have dropped far enough that the leaf drags before it ever reaches the post.

Three things get looked at when we walk an old enclosure. The height on the outside face, measured up from the ground rather than from a pool deck that sits higher. The gate, which has to close and catch on its own from a full open swing and should swing away from the water. And the ground line, because a run that steps down a settled yard can leave an opening under a panel that is exactly the wrong size.

Not all of that means a new fence. Where the run is sound and only the gate is failing, the fix is a post, a self closing hinge set and a latch mounted high and out of reach, which is a morning of work rather than a project. Where the deck comes right to the water's edge, aluminum posts can be flange mounted and anchored into the existing concrete instead of dug, which keeps the deck intact.

Racking over ground that has moved since 1975

A Mauldin back yard has had fifty years to settle. Lawns creep, a patio slab lifts at one corner, an old fence line dips where a stump rotted away underneath it. None of it adds up to a slope you would call a slope.

Aluminum handles that particularly well. Panels rack, so the rails pivot at the brackets and the bottom of the fence tracks the ground while the pickets stay vertical. A stepped line laid across the same yard looks worse than the ground does, because every small rise gets answered with a visible jog.

The limit is how much drop a single panel takes before the brackets bind, and past that point the line has to step with posts cut to suit. So the measurement that decides the order is the fall between each pair of post centers, not the fall across the whole yard.

No committee, so the money goes where it matters

Most of the older Mauldin subdivisions predate covenants. Knollwood went in off Brooks Road in the 1970s with 322 homes and Forrester Woods followed in the 1980s with 92 lots, and neighborhoods of that vintage frequently have no architectural committee reviewing anything. Homeowners here have more freedom than their neighbors a few exits down I-385.

That freedom is worth something concrete. With nobody dictating a color and a height, the height gets set by what the fence is actually for, and the budget goes into the grade of the system and the gate hardware instead of into satisfying a review. On a pool enclosure that is precisely where the money should land.

Gate width is the other place it shows up. A 1975 back yard was fenced before anyone owned a zero turn mower or pulled a twenty foot trailer, so the original gate is usually three feet wide and in the wrong corner. With no committee to ask, nothing stops a wide double gate on the driveway side, and on an aluminum run that is a post size and hardware decision rather than a redesign.

What a aluminum fencing job in Mauldin includes

A Mauldin aluminum quote is written for a yard that already has a fence, and often a pool, in it.

• An inspection of the existing enclosure against the 48 inch barrier height and the gate requirements
• The fall measured between each pair of post centers so the rack angle is ordered correctly
• Tear out of the old fence, with the original footings dug out and hauled away
• Utility locate request placed before we dig, with pool equipment lines flagged
• Powder coated posts, panels, caps, brackets and gate frames
• Flange mounted posts anchored into an existing pool deck where digging would break concrete
• Self closing hinges and a self latching mechanism mounted high on every pool gate
• Wider gate openings where a mower or a trailer has to get through, with the posts sized for the leaf

The full breakdown of materials, process and pricing factors lives on our aluminum fence installation page. This page covers what changes in Mauldin.