Quality Assurance & Inspections
Checking the fence against the specification while it can still be put right.
Why people bring this to somebody outside
A strainer that is not deep enough looks exactly like one that is. So does a wire strained to the wrong tension, a post out of a mix that will not last, and a footing poured on a wet day. Almost everything that goes wrong with a fence is invisible by the time the job is finished and the invoice is in.
Independent inspection is the answer, and the timing is the whole point. I visit while the work is happening, at stages agreed with you in advance rather than at random, check what is going in against what was specified, and raise anything that needs raising while it can still be fixed without an argument. Each visit produces a short written report with photographs, so there is a record that exists outside anyone's memory.
This is not about catching contractors out, and good ones welcome it. The specification is clear, the standard is agreed, the record is kept as the job goes, and nobody is arguing at the end about what was supposed to happen.
Retaining and fencing built together. Once the backfill is in, nobody can check what went on behind it.
What this covers
Construction monitoring
Attendance at the stages where the work becomes impossible to check afterwards.
Defect identification
What is wrong, why it is wrong, and what putting it right involves.
Independent quality inspections
A one-off inspection where you need an outside view of work already done.
Practical completion inspections
A documented walk-over against the specification before the final payment is released.
Final sign-off reports
A report you can file, send to a funder, or rely on in a warranty conversation later.
Who this is for
- Owners paying for a fence they are not on site to watch being built
- Councils and organisations who have to evidence that a contract was delivered
- Corporate landowners with works running on a property at a distance
- Anyone about to release a final payment they are not sure about
What you get
- Written site reports with dated photographs
- A defects list, prioritised, with what each item needs
- A practical completion or final sign-off report
Costed and agreed before I start, never after. A phone call about a straightforward question is usually free.
Often taken together with
Project Management
Someone running the fencing package who is not also the one being paid to build it.
Read more →Dispute Resolution
An impartial assessment, in writing, from somebody with no stake in how it turns out.
Read more →Fence Design & Specification
Deciding what is going in, and writing it down properly, before anybody is asked to price it.
Read more →Paid for the advice, not for the work that follows
I am a certified fencer and I also own a fencing contracting business. That is stated up front rather than buried, because it is the first thing anybody sensible wants to know about an independent adviser.
The rule is simple and it does not bend. If I am advising you, my contracting company is not tendering for your job. You can have my advice or you can have my crew, and you cannot have both on the same project, because the moment you could the advice stops being worth anything. If you would rather have the fence built than the question answered, I will say so and point you elsewhere.
It works the same way in a dispute. I give the same finding whichever party is paying for the assessment, and if your position is the weaker one you will hear that from me first.
The contracting business is Custom Fencing Ltd, which is where the experience behind all of this comes from - and it is disclosed here so that you can check it rather than discover it.
FCANZ Certified Fencer. The Fencing Contractors Association of New Zealand assesses fencers against a practical standard that has to be maintained rather than earned once. The reason it matters here: the advice comes from somebody who still has to go out and build to the standard he is describing.
Tell me what you are trying to work out
Most people get in touch because they have a decision to make and nobody independent to check it with - a tender that does not add up, a fence line that keeps failing, a dispute that has stopped moving, or a property they are about to buy. Describe the situation and I will tell you honestly whether it needs me, and what it would take.
021 614 100- nick@customfenceconsulting.co.nz
- 130 Edinburgh Street, Waikouaiti 9510, Otago
- Monday to Friday, 7am - 5.30pm
Based at Waikouaiti in East Otago and working throughout New Zealand. Site work anywhere in the country; desk work - a tender review, a specification, an opinion on a set of photographs - can start the day you send it.