How to Draw a Fence
If you are trying to figure out how to draw a fence, you’ve come to the right place. We do quite a lot of fence drawings around here, so we’ve got some great tips for you.
A fence drawing is important for many reasons. Sometimes, you just want to be sure your contractor knows what they are quoting for, but other times, you might need to submit a fence drawing for permits or other required steps in the fencing process. Be sure to understand what type of drawing you need, and then read on for tips on how to draw a fence!
Decide What Kind of Fence Drawing You Need
There are many different types of fence drawing you might need and defining this is the first step in figuring out how to draw a fence.
If you just need a layout of your fence for a fence installer or company, you can make a reasonably neat hand drawn sketch with the dimensions and main features marked on the drawing.
If you need to submit a plan for permits, as builts for a fence that’s already been installed or shop drawings for a fence, things get a little more complicated.
Read and Understand Your Specification
The next step in fence drawing is understanding what you are drawing. That means either reading a written specification if you have one or designing the fence yourself.
If you are reading a specification, pay attention to the height, post spacing, post type, fittings that are specified and the panels or mesh. All of these will be important to ensure that the fence you draw is the fence you actually want!
Decide Which Views You Will Draw
Once you understand the specification for the fence you want to draw, the next step is to decide what kind of views you need.
Usually, a full set of drawings will include a plan view, seen from above, and several elevations of the fence, gates, and other features. There might also be detail drawings of specific parts of the fence.
Typically, a fence drawing set needs to have enough information so that anyone who is reading the drawings would be able to build the fence themselves.
Get Your Drawing Equipment Together
There are two main ways to do any fence drawings: you can use CAD software, or you can use old fashioned drawing equipment.
If you don’t already have CAD, it can be very expensive to purchase this kind of software, and you can expect to pay several hundred or even several thousand dollars.
If you want to draw a fence by hand, you will probably need a T-square, set squares, a compass and a set of drawing pencils. Depending on who is going to review the fence drawings, you might also need to color them in, so find out if that’s required, and what color pencils you will need. You will also need a calculator and a scale ruler to scale your drawing accurately.
Choose a Scale
If you use CAD software for fence drawings, you don’t need to choose a scale for your fence, because you will always draw your fence in 1:1 scale.
However, if you are going to draw your fence by hand, you need to figure out what scale will fit on your drawing sheet. Usually, this might be 1:10 or 1:20, depending on the view and your drawing sheet size.
Draw It the Way You Build It
The best answer we have to the question of how to draw a fence once you actually get started is to draw it like you build it.
Start at the bottom of a terminal post, draw the post and concrete base if applicable, and then start adding features from there.
You will need a reference point to start your drawing from, including post spacing, gate sizes and so on, and this is the best way we’ve found to make sure you don’t miss anything.
Get Free Drawings Here
If you’re not already skilled at technical drawing, drawing a fence is not the simplest place to start learning!
We do have several free downloadable fence drawings on this site, which you can mark up as necessary for your contractor or for other purposes.
