It's dark now, but I'll get some decent pics tomorrow and post them.

Plumbers definitely have the advantage of urgency. Solar is the exact opposite. I have one client that was 7 years between initial estimate and signing the contract.

Food chain-wise though, plumbers are on the bottom end.

MEP (mechanical, electrical & plumbing) are generally the triumvirate when it comes to construction projects in my experience, all the others are secondary.

Kinda hard to do M E or P for a building that doesn't exist.

It bewilders me when people think tradesmen are getting rich. The odd one does very well but the majority are just making middle/lower middle wage.

Well around here if the nice face alternates between the properties meaning you see the framing on both sides in alternating sections it is a "good neighbor" fence and both are usually responsible. If your neighbor decides to flake on their responsibility then you can make them have the bad side along the whole run if you replace it. I have not heard of anyone actually doing that yet, tho.

True, but most of them aren't saddled w/ 100k in student loan debt. How well they do is more closely associated with their business acumen, coupled with how hard they want to work.

There are plenty of tradesmen out there "just" making middle class wages because they want to work 20 hrs per week and spend the rest of the time dicking around.

How long will fixing the fence take? The way I imagine it, it's picking up the section and putting in a few nails. Neighbor should have just done it himself.

The jobs I listed were 4 hours for $720

Even with some travel in between that is a lot.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/y...-plumbers.html

Sounds like an opportunity for you to jump into the field and undercut everybody's rates. You could charge half that and still make a fat 6 figure salary!

if all that is wrong is that the parts of the fence fell down, there is almost no way that will be more than your hurricane deductible on your insurance policy.

Basically the entire fence on both sides will need to be replaced. I also have roof damage which will exceed the deductible.

This fence thing reminds me of a problem/question that I have:

How is it decided who owns a fence?

Our neighbor has fencing that encloses their back yard. One section runs along the boundary of our properties. This section abuts our side yard which otherwise is not fenced -- it does not touch our back yard because there's a driveway in between.

They recently replaced their fence -- but only 3/4 of it. They left the abutting section as-is.

We would much prefer that it had all been replaced but we didn't know this was happening until it was too late. Afterwards my wife told them that we'd be happy to pay half for that section to be re-done as well. They seemed only mildly interested and nothing has happened.

Thoughts?

I think whoever put the fence up owns the fence. If you purchase property that already has fencing, you own it. If it abuts someone else's property they can force you to move it. Ymmv and ianal and it's been years since I took Property but I think that's correct at least in my state.

The way the fence is built is a good indicator of who owns it, or at least who built it. If you can see the wood that holds the pickets together it was built by you or whoever owned the property before you.

Someone feel free to correct this but I think that's right

Like in your case if you wanted to be a dick about it you could get them to move it off your property but it might not be worth the trouble and expense

Around here, if it is on your property, it is your fence. YMMV with jurisdiction.

Not 100% but the way it was explained to me is the "good" side is the side that you do not see the posts, only the pickets. If you have a privacy fence between adjoining yards and your neighbor won't split the cost of upgrading, replacing or repairing you are entitled to build it to give yourself the good view across all sections. If they split the cost and responsibilities of it then it is built "good neighbor" style with alternating sections of the good and bad view. This is my understanding for suburban NorCal, anyway.

Example.

Yikes. I'd rather have the "bad view" over a split one.

Yeah that is bad

I agree. It's not the top of my list of worst compromises living in these developments, tho. The poor quality of the fencing itself being higher.

That fence is ghastly. It's like the worst possible solution for everybody involved.

ime there are few if any laws out there dictating which side of a fence faces which way, because there is no way to legislate which is the "good" side. It's purely subjective, and customs about which way to orient them are nothing more than that, based on good neighbor community norms.

In the appliance repair industry and this is 100% true

For a second I was really confused and thought this was the one damaged in a hurricane.