Creating their home, people always tried to protect it. And one of the first means to accomplish this task is the fence, which after centuries of a simple pile of stones transformed into an exquisite wrought-iron or cast bars, monumental monolithic fence or openwork wooden decoration.
Fencing is not only protection from uninvited guests, but also a kind of decorative screen that separates the street from your own acres. In addition, it should be beautiful and durable, and its aesthetics almost always reflect the culture of the owners of the house. The pattern and style of the fence may be different, but in any case, its design is coordinated with the appearance of the house, that is, with the architecture of the facade or the details of its decoration.
Today the market offers the most diverse range of materials for the construction of fences, gates, entrance gates. Undoubtedly, in the list of materials offered, the traditional wood takes precedence. Active position is occupied by stone, brick, as well as recently become popular monolithic concrete, ceramics, plastic and metal. Increased demand for forged or cast metal fences. Owners of suburban homes are increasingly interested in fences made of flat or corrugated sheets of tin or aluminum, polycarbonate, carved wooden boards, and so on.
In rural areas to this day you can find a traditional wattle of vines, as well as simple fences consisting of several racks-stakes with horizontal poles. Such Patriarchal fences enclosing the land plot, echoes the appearance of rural housing.
Today, special attention has been paid to the improvement of the territory of a country house. The culture of rural life touched not only the arrangement and division of the site into separate zones, but also the aesthetics of the fence.
Currently, more than half of all fences are made of wood. They are diverse in design and pattern. And most importantly-they are easy to build with your own hands, without resorting to any construction equipment. Sometimes as a decorative decoration, you can use water-resistant plywood or picket fence, which will give the fence a new decorative quality.
So, the proposed design in the form of a wooden grid of rails intersecting at an angle of 45?, will be a simple and at the same time quite beautiful street fence site. It consists of vertical support posts and horizontal crossbars, inside which are installed mesh shields-screens. The height of this fence is 150-180 cm, and higher options are not excluded.
The device of the gate is interesting. It is assembled from the same rails, but has a more rigid structure. This is due to the fact that the gate is always in motion, i.e. it should be easy to open and close. Therefore, distortions during its installation are unacceptable. Similar requirements apply to two posts made of square wooden posts.
To ensure that the distance between the posts was always the same (100-120 cm), they are connected (top and bottom) horizontal metal pins or jumpers from the corner profile. A kind of roof over the gate are curved sheets of transparent polycarbonate, attached to the supports with a metal (aluminum) frame.
The traditional design of the fence and gate, made of vertical slats, can be seen in almost every rural house. However, the drawing and individual details differ from each other. Each rail is attached to two or three horizontal beams that rest on wooden square posts. Moreover, these supports are lowered to the depth of freezing (90-120 cm or more). The lower part of each post is covered with a special solution that protects the tree from rotting. In addition, the part of the support that will be in the ground, it is desirable to wrap the roofing material.
In recent years, fences have been used as a “stand” for flowers and plants. Such an innovation not only enriched the decorative outfit of the fence, but also created an original look of vertical landscaping of the site. Boxes of flowers turned into a kind of planters, and the wall became like a colorful green screen facing the house.
In this case, the basis of the fence is assembled from vertical rails and horizontal bars, based on wooden pillars-supports (not excluded pillars of concrete). On the rack screen of the fence hung boxes-pots. They are fixed with metal brackets or brackets. Options for placing flower pots can be both in the upper and lower part of the fence fence. This fence creates a sense of fairy-tale Eden surrounding the house from all sides.
If you go back to statistics, then after wooden fences in second place are fences made of metal and concrete. As a rule, metal parts complement the concrete fence. Many owners of mansions, cottages and individual country houses prefer to protect their estate with a concrete or metal screen. Drawing and decorative design of such fences emphasizes the prestige and high taste of the inhabitants of the home.
As the practice of construction shows, the material of the fence is directly related to the material from which the house is built. If the walls are stone (brick, blocks, monolithic concrete), the preference is given to metal, reinforced concrete or other modern materials.
The design of concrete fences is also attractive because they are quickly assembled and can be used for a long time (up to 50 years or more).
They are based on load-bearing supports (concrete pillars) and concrete decorative screens. The latter are easily mounted in the grooves made in the supports. All elements of such fencing are made at factories of reinforced concrete products. Additional decoration for concrete sections can serve as metal grilles, simple forged semicircles or vertical pins, etc.
The combination of two different materials (for example, concrete and metal) in the sections of the fence creates an unusual contrast, and at the same time a harmonious relationship, which make the fence an element of decorative decoration. It should be noted that with the advent of the construction market transparent material-polycarbonate-many owners of country houses began to use it to create light and elegant fences.
Fastening of polycarbonate sheets to a metal wire frame is made using special thermal washers (self-tapping screws with a rubber gasket). They allow this material to “breathe”, that is, they make holes in the sheets with a diameter larger than the dimensions of the thermal washer. Then when the material is deformed under the influence of temperature in summer and winter, the fence will not crack and change shape. And that the site of the house was not viewed from the street, use tinted sheets that allow visually protect the garden space from prying eyes.
A similar design solution is used for wickets. The same welded frame of angle profile and wire, which is attached to the polycarbonate sheet on thermal washers.
As you can see, modern fences can be very diverse in material, design solutions, design features. And each owner of a country site can choose a suitable version of this important element of improvement.