Old Fence Removal and Haul-Away
Pulling a fence out is its own job with its own labor, its own hole in the ground, and its own trip to the landfill. Here is why it shows up as a separate line.
Taking a Fence Out Is Not the Reverse of Putting One In
People assume tearing out an old fence is the easy part. Sometimes it is. Often it is the hardest half-day on the job, and it is the part of a rebuild estimate homeowners argue with most, because from the curb it looks like throwing boards in a truck.
What is actually happening is three separate problems. Getting the above-ground fence down and off the property. Getting the posts and their footings out of the ground. And getting rid of all of it, which costs money at the far end whether or not anybody wants to talk about that. We remove wood, vinyl, chain link, aluminum, iron, and farm wire fence in Jackson and the surrounding counties, either as its own job or as the first day of a rebuild.
Get a free estimate
Call or text Greg at (731) 555-1234, or use the form. Photos of your yard help.
Free on-site estimates in Jackson & West Tennessee.
Posts and concrete: the part that takes the time
The fence above ground comes apart fast. Boards, rails, panels, and fabric are fasteners and a reciprocating saw. The day goes into the posts.
A post set in concrete is a buried block with a stick in it, and that block either comes up or stays in the ground to be worked around. Which one changes the whole job.
Pulling the footing. The honest option and the more expensive one. The whole plug comes out, leaving clean ground where the new posts need to go. On a wood post rotted at the ground line, the wood snaps off and leaves the concrete behind, so we are extracting a plug with nothing to grab. That is when it gets slow.
Leaving it and shifting the new post. Reasonable if the new line does not want a post there. Usually it does, because new post spacing rarely falls neatly between old footings, and an old footing an inch from a new hole makes that hole a fight.
Breaking it up in place. Sometimes the only route on a tight line or where a machine cannot reach.
What makes footings harder or easier:
- How big they are. Nobody knows until the first one comes up. Some old fences have several bags of concrete per hole. Some have posts tamped into dirt that lift out by hand.
- Whether the post is still sound. A solid post gives you a handle. A rotted one does not.
- Gate posts and corners. Set deeper and heavier on purpose, and they come out that way too.
- Machine access. The big one. Ground a machine can reach turns hours into minutes. A back yard behind a narrow gate means every footing comes out by hand.
- Soil condition that day. Our silt grips a footing when dry and lets go easier with moisture in it, so weather changes the labor.
Spoil, and the holes you are left with
Pull a footing and you have a hole and a pile. That is the part of removal nobody pictures.
The hole is bigger than the footing was, because the surrounding ground gets disturbed coming out. If a new post goes in that spot, the new footing fills it. If the fence is not being replaced, those holes get backfilled and tamped, or you have a line of soft spots that settle into dips over the next year and find a mower deck.
The pile is spoil: the dirt that came out with the footing plus whatever it was sitting in. Some goes back in the hole. The rest has to go somewhere, and where depends on what it is. Clean soil can often spread on site. Soil mixed with broken concrete cannot just be raked into the lawn.
The ground matters here. West Tennessee uplands are Gulf Coastal Plain under wind-blown silt, which digs easily and drains poorly once compacted. A backfilled post hole in that ground is looser than everything around it, so it takes water preferentially and settles. That is why tamping in lifts matters on a removal-only job, and why the yard along an old fence line stays visibly different for a season. See setting fence posts in West Tennessee soil.
One thing we are clear about: we put the ground back reasonably and we do not reshape your yard. Filling and tamping holes and raking the line out is part of removal. Reworking the contour of a lot is not something we offer.
Where the old fence goes
Disposal is a real cost and it is the second half of why removal is its own line item. A fence that came off a yard is a volume of mixed material that has to be hauled and then accepted somewhere, and accepting it costs money by weight or by load.
What comes off a typical job and where it tends to go:
- Treated lumber. Not burnable, not yard waste. A landfill item.
- Concrete footings. Heavy, and weight is usually what a disposal charge runs on. A handful can outweigh every board on the fence.
- Chain link fabric and steel. Metal has scrap value that can offset part of the haul.
- Vinyl panels. Bulky, light, awkward, and they eat load space out of proportion to their weight.
- Farm wire. The worst of it. Old woven wire grown into a fencerow comes out in tangles and rolling it is slow.
- Hardware and fasteners. Small, sharp, easy to leave behind. They come out with a magnet, which matters if anybody is barefoot in that yard.
We haul all of it, and nothing gets piled at the curb for you. On farm work we make a point of picking up scrap wire, because wire in a pasture is a vet bill waiting to happen.
Why it shows up as its own line on the quote
People sometimes ask us to bury the removal in the fence price so the quote looks cleaner. We do not, for two reasons.
Removal is the least predictable work on the job, because until the first footing comes up nobody knows how much concrete is in the ground. Broken out, you can see what you are paying for and what changes if it turns out different. Bundled into a per-foot number it is invisible, and that is also how a lowball bid hides the fact that removal was never included and will be extra later.
It also lets us split it. Some people want the whole fence out, some want one run out, and some are taking it down themselves and only want the footings pulled and the debris hauled. That last one is a reasonable way to save money and we will quote exactly that.
When comparing bids, ask every contractor this: is old fence removal and disposal in the number, and does it include pulling the concrete footings? The answer separates quotes that look different but are not. See questions to ask a fence contractor and the Jackson fence cost guide.
Doing removal ahead of a rebuild
Most of our removal work is day one of a new fence, and sequencing it properly is worth something.
Agree on the line before anything comes down
Once the old fence is gone, so is the reference for where the line ran. Same place, we mark it first. Moving it, and this is when the boundary question gets settled, which is why Jackson's fence permit application asks for a certified boundary survey or a signed neighbor agreement. Any doubt, read fence line and property disputes before the fence comes out.
One 811 locate covers both
Tennessee law requires notifying 811 at least three full business days before any excavation, hand tools included, and pulling footings is excavation. Removal and installation as one project means one locate and one waiting period instead of two.
Plan for the yard being open
Between the old fence coming out and the new posts curing, the yard is not enclosed. If you have a dog that matters more than anything else here, and it is the first thing we ask. Sometimes we phase it a run at a time so there is always a fence up. Either way, say it on the phone.
Footings out, then holes located fresh
The new layout comes off a string line for the new fence, not off where the old posts happened to be. Old footings out of the way means new holes go where they belong.
Debris leaves before the build starts
Old material off the property before new material comes on. A yard with two fences worth of lumber in it is a yard nobody can work in.
On permits: taking a fence down is not generally the permit event, putting one up is. Inside the Jackson city limits a fence permit is required for fence installation, and in unincorporated Madison County no building permit is required for a standard residential fence 7 feet or under, with taller triggering a permit and structural review. The county building department is (731) 423-6014. See the permits and rules guide and fence installation.
What moves the price
No figures. What actually changes a removal number:
- Total footage. The baseline.
- Post count and how they were set. The real driver. Heavy concrete versus tamped dirt are different jobs, and nobody knows which you have until the first one comes up.
- Whether footings come out or stay. Pulling plugs costs more than cutting posts off at grade, and it is usually right ahead of a rebuild.
- Material and weight. Disposal runs on weight and concrete is the heavy part. Chain link steel may offset some as scrap.
- Access to the line. The largest swing after post count. A line a machine reaches against a back yard where every footing walks out by hand.
- Grade of the land. A slope is slower and harder to get a machine onto safely.
- What has grown into it. Vines, hedges, a fence a tree grew around. We do not take trees down, so timber is somebody else's work first.
- Condition. A sound fence comes apart in panels. A collapsed one gets picked up piece by piece.
- Whether the ground gets restored. Backfilling and tamping on a removal-only job is work a rebuild absorbs into the new footings.
Relative terms: removal is a modest part of a full rebuild and it is not nothing, and on a fence with heavy footings and no machine access it can be the largest single surprise in a project. Which is why we quote it where you can see it.
Get a free estimate
Call or text Greg at (731) 555-1234, or use the form. Photos of your yard help.
Free on-site estimates in Jackson & West Tennessee.
Common questions
Do you take the old fence away, or do I have to deal with it?
+We haul all of it. Boards, panels, fabric, posts, concrete footings, and hardware go out with us, and nothing gets stacked at the curb for you. On farm work we make a point of picking up scrap wire, since wire left in a pasture is a hazard to livestock.
Do the old concrete footings have to come out?
+Usually yes, ahead of a rebuild, because the new post spacing rarely lines up with the old footings and an old plug next to a new hole makes that hole a fight. If the fence is not being replaced, footings can sometimes be cut off below grade instead, which costs less. We tell you which one your line calls for.
Why is removal a separate line on the estimate?
+Because it is the least predictable work on the job and because you deserve to see it. Nobody knows how much concrete is in the ground until the first footing comes up, and a bundled per-foot number hides whether removal and disposal were included at all. Breaking it out also lets us quote partial removal if you only want part of the fence gone.
Will my yard be torn up?
+There will be a disturbed strip along the fence line, and on a removal-only job there will be a filled hole where every post was. We backfill and tamp those in lifts and rake the line out, but a backfilled hole in our silty soil is looser than the ground around it and can settle a little over the following season. If a machine is used, there will be tire tracks. We tell you what to expect before we start.
Can I take the fence down myself and have you haul it?
+Yes, and plenty of people do to save labor. We will quote pulling the footings and hauling the debris, or just the haul if you handle the posts too. Two cautions: pulling posts is excavation, so the 811 locate still applies, and treated lumber and concrete are heavier and more awkward than people expect once they are in a pile.
How we work and where
We look at the fence in person, because the post footings and the access are the whole estimate and neither one shows in a photo. We count posts, check what they are set in where we can, look at how a machine would get to the line, and ask whether you have a dog or anything else that needs the yard closed. Then you get a written quote with removal, disposal, and any rebuild listed separately.
We remove fence in Jackson, across Madison County, and through the surrounding towns, as a standalone job or as the front end of a new build. If part of your fence is worth keeping, we will say so, because repairing a good run beats tearing it out. Call or text Greg at (731) 555-1234.