Fence Company in Burbank, CA

Our contractors cover Burbank, and it is one of the easier places around here to get a fence built. The ground is flat and soft, most yards already have a fence to replace, and a crew can usually drive right up to the line. Expect a straightforward back yard fence to take one to two days on site once it is approved.

Burbank shares Glendale's western edge, and crossing that line changes the rule book completely. Same valley, same soil, same weather, and a totally different city code. Almost everything published about fence rules in this part of Los Angeles is written about Glendale, and none of it governs an address on the Burbank side.

The two cities look continuous from a car. The streets run straight across, the houses look similar, and the Verdugo Mountains sit behind both. But Burbank is its own city, which means its own planning staff, its own permit rules and its own review process. A contractor who only works Glendale will get the process wrong here, and the way that shows up is a start date that keeps slipping.

The Ground Here Is The Easy Part

Burbank sits mostly on the valley floor at the foot of the Verdugos, on soft dirt carried down out of the mountains over thousands of years. For fencing that is close to ideal, because the material is deep, even, and free of the rock and crumbly granite that makes hillside work slow.

A two man crew with a power auger can put in a full day of post holes here without fighting the ground. That matters to the price more than most people expect, because on a hillside lot a few hundred feet away the same fence might need holes finished by hand, a machine that cannot reach the line, and every bag of concrete carried in.

There is no frost line anywhere in Los Angeles County, so post depth here comes down to wind and soil rather than freezing. On Burbank's flatter interior streets the wind exposure is mild. Closer to the Verdugo slopes, downhill Santa Ana wind is a real load, and a solid six foot fence acts like a sail.

Mostly Replacement, Rarely New

Burbank filled in early. Most of the residential city went up between the late 1920s and the 1950s around the aircraft plants and the studios, on regular lots with detached garages and rear alleys. Those back yards have been fenced for a very long time.

So the typical job is a replacement on a line that already exists, and that is the cheapest and quickest kind of fence work there is. Same spot, same height, no new boundary to argue about. What does come up is alley gates, shared driveways, and side yards narrow enough that there is a real question about where the line falls.

The Neighbor Conversation Matters More On Small Lots

California Civil Code 841, the Good Neighbor Fence Act, assumes you and your neighbor both get equal use out of a boundary fence and both split the cost evenly. Your neighbor can argue against that, but the burden is on them to show an even split would be unfair.

The step people skip is the notice. Before you spend the money you have to give each affected neighbor thirty days written warning, and that notice has to tell them about the even split rule. On Burbank's compact lots, where a fence line can sit a few feet from somebody's window, doing that properly is the difference between splitting a bill and having a fight.

It is also worth agreeing on the material before the notice goes out. A neighbor who would happily split a standard redwood fence may object to paying half for custom ironwork they never asked for, and whether the cost was reasonable is exactly the ground people argue on.

Before Anyone Digs

State law says you have to call 811 before you dig, at least two working days ahead and no more than fourteen days ahead. In Southern California that call goes to DigAlert. A working day means Monday to Friday, seven in the morning to five in the evening, and the day you call does not count toward the two.

This applies to a fence post hole. It is easy to think of a two foot hole as too small to bother with, but sprinkler lines, low voltage yard lighting, gas services and cable all sit at fence depth, and in older Burbank neighborhoods the records of what is buried where are not always right.

A contractor who works this area every week will already have the ticket open before the crew shows up. If nobody has mentioned 811 by the time you are being asked for a deposit, ask about it.