How to Use Our Vinyl Fence Calculator
After you’ve received your PDF download for our Vinyl Fence Calculator we would like to show you exactly how to use it. To some, it might be a bit confusing to others it makes perfect sense, regardless of which category you fall into, we are here to help.
If you haven’t received a copy of our Fencing Calculator then you can download it below.
Fence Calculator Step 1: How many feet do you need?
There are several ways to determine the total footage of your upcoming fencing project. You might have already measured it out precisely by hand or counted your existing panels. Which is usually best, but also time-consuming. At Vinyl Fence Warehouse we not only supply contractors with fencing material, but for 30 years we have also installed it.
With that type of industry expertise, you often come across a few tricks. For example, did you know you can use Google Earth to measure pretty close to the exact length of the fence you need?
Simply go to Google Earth.
Then type in the address or find the location where you plan to install the fence. In the picture below you will see we have selected Vinyl Fence Warehouse. You can zoom in or out whichever you prefer.
Now over to the left, as indicated in the picture below you will notice a ruler. Click the ruler to “measure distance & area”.
You will notice your cursor now has turned into a plus sign and it now says select a starting point. You can now begin mapping out your fence line directly onto the map. Feel free to add bends and turns into your measurement. In the end, you will have something that looks like this…
As you can see Google Earth now shows me that I have mapped out roughly 915 feet of fence line for Vinyl Fence.
Fence Calculator Step 2: Decide your style of fencing
On our Pricing calculator, the first thing you will notice is your style of fencing. We have a variety of which you can choose from, and are available in 6-foot or 8-foot sections.
Once you have selected which style of fencing you’d like, we can now select the quantity of the fence panels that you need.
Fence Calculator Step 3: How many Fence Panels do you need?
Our fence panels come in 6-foot or 8-foot wide sections, and thanks to Google that we need 915 feet worth of panels. We can simply take 915 and divided by 8 (feet) = 114.375 Panels. Or 115 panels as we will need to round up. So write in 115 panels next to the 8′ quantity if you’re selecting 8-foot.
Depending on your style of fence you will select the height of the panels. Lastly followed by the color of your fence panels. White or Tan.
Fence Calculator Step 4: How many Fence Posts & Caps?
Posts are available in:
Blank Post – Rarely needed, No Holes Cut.
End Post – Beginning and end of a fence run. (holes on one side)
Line Post – Used when running fencing in a straight line. (Holes on opposite sides)
Corner Post – Used to turn your fence row 90*. (Holes cut to turn a corner)
3 Way Post – Used when your fence line continues on but turns at the same time in the form of the letter T. Sometimes called a Tee post.
So if we need 115 fence panels. How many, and what type of fence posts do we need? Per stretch of continuous fencing, we will need 1 additional post than we will need panels. So 116 posts in total, broken down as follow:
(2) End Posts
(6) Corner Posts
Out of the total 116 that we will need for our fencing, Subtract the above posts (8), leaving 108. This is the number of Line posts that we will need. So we will need (108) Line Posts to finish our project.
Don’t forget, your fence will require 1 post cap per post. We have many to choose from!
Below we have marked our Google Earth image with our fence posts to give you an idea on how your complete “Fence Calculator” should look.
This should help you get the most use out of our Free Fence Calculator. This will also help us respond to your quote request a lot faster and more accurately knowing exactly what you need for your fencing project.
Please let us know in the comments if this blog post helped you in any way.
Thanks
-Vinyl Fence Warehouse