Almost every owner of a private house or summer cottage, acquiring a building or building a new one, takes care of the safety of the territory of his possession from outside intrusions and prying eyes. To do this, he installs a fence around the perimeter of his site.
Features of the
Today manufacturers offer a wide range of building materials for creating a fence. Fences can be created from wood, brick, natural stone, gitter mesh or chain-link, corrugated board, concrete slabs. There are status options for wrought iron fences, welded metal and their combinations.
Any type of such fencing has a number of advantages. Most of them are beautiful and solid, are distinguished by reliability and durability, as well as a variety of designs, but they also have a number of disadvantages. Here, there is a solid cost, and the complexity of their installation, and the need to attract professional specialists and construction equipment to their construction. All of these factors often prevail when choosing a fence.
Nevertheless, there is another affordable material that does not create technological difficulties when constructing a territory fence from it - slate. A fence from it can be equally soundly and thoroughly erected both in a village or summer cottage, and in a city. True, slate is quite fragile and is afraid of shock loads. It is better to erect fences from it away from the roadway, fearing an accidental stone from under the wheels or some kind of surprise from street vandals. It is more expedient to erect a fence of this material somewhere inside the site, fencing, for example, with a slate fence the yard from the vegetable garden or garden, or to install such a fence on the border with the possessions of neighbors.
Slate is a well-known building material for a long time. It is made by mixing asbestos with cement and water.
Asbestos fibers, evenly distributed in this mass, create a strong mesh, ensuring the tensile strength of the material and giving it the appropriate impact strength.
Varieties
Most people distinguish between two types of gray slate: wave and flat, without knowing some of the nuances, information about which can be useful when choosing a suitable material. So, flat slate exists in two types: pressed and unpressed.
The first option is much more massive, therefore its strength indicators are very high. Due to the high density of its sheets, their strength increases up to 25%, and the impact strength of such slate reaches 2.5 kJ / m2. Due to this circumstance, the fragility of this material is not so high. This also implies its other property - frost resistance, which is why the pressed type of slate should be considered the most favorable option for creating a sufficiently strong fence.
Wave slate also comes in several varieties., of which the most interesting are its painted sheets from modern manufacturers who have managed to significantly expand the range of this building material. Therefore, now it has acquired a more attractive appearance, eliminating the need for the consumer to paint the fence. Due to the specific shape of the asbestos-cement profile, sheets of such slate are distinguished by greater rigidity and strength, having even an insignificant thickness of the order of 4.7-7.5 mm.
If wave slate is chosen for the construction of the fence, then the best option for this would be the “UV” brand - a unified type of profile. Its sheets are distinguished by a more significant density against the background of wave analogs, and their size allows you to work with them with sufficient ease and convenience.
The weight of one sheet of this brand does not exceed 26 kg, and its width allows you to minimize material consumption.
Properties
Slate is a material made from a mixture of asbestos with Portland cement and modifying additives. All these components are mixed in water during the manufacturing process until a thick homogeneous mixture is obtained. It is pressed on the appropriate technological equipment and further high-temperature drying.
The advantages of this material lie in its affordability. So, the cost of a sheet of wave slate 1750 × 970 mm with a thickness of 5.2 mm is about 205 rubles.
Asbestos-cement slate is a fairly durable material. Its sheet is able to withstand a point load of the order of 70 kg or more. At the same time, such a material does not undergo deformation and does not become covered with cracks, while continuing to maintain its factory shape.
Another useful property of slate, produced along with other building materials in accordance with GOST, is its durability. For unpainted material, the minimum service life is about 30 years.
Sheets of a painted product will last over 50 years.
In addition, it is very frost-resistant. Asbestos cement is a porous material. This allows the slate to retain its properties for a long time under the influence of low temperatures for a very long time. Slate is also a very reliable material, since it is not susceptible to corrosion, cannot serve as a breeding ground for insects and molds, it is not affected by moisture and heating to high temperatures.
Due to the presence of a protective coloring layer, colored grades of corrugated slate are not so sensitive to the action of water on them and better withstand negative temperatures. The painted sheet lasts 1.5 times longer than its conventional counterpart of the same thickness.
All these qualities are manifested by slate in those situations when it is used directly as a roofing material. When it is used to build fences, it can manifest itself in a slightly different way. In such a fence, a sheet of slate is placed vertically, so there is a risk of impact on its sheet perpendicularly or tangentially, which is fraught with cracks or chipping.
The weight of the smallest sheet of wave-type slate is 18.5 kg, and for its flat counterpart, this figure ranges from 75-350 kg. The use of such heavy sheets will require a more reliable concreting of the base for the bearing supports and the use of appropriate fasteners.
The asbestos contained in this material, when drilled and cut, forms dust harmful to humans.
Therefore, it is necessary to work with him in respiratory and vision protection.
Fence construction
The length of the fence is measured with a tape measure along the perimeter of the site.
Its construction is carried out in several ways. The most reliable and stable type of such a structure is a fence installed on a belt-type foundation. To obtain such a foundation, it will be necessary to pour concrete into a pre-installed formwork. If the territory of the site has irregularities with height differences, then for an even placement of the formwork, you will need to prepare the base.
A simpler technology is to install a fence on concrete supports. This method is used for stony soils and sandy soil types.
If the fence is erected using this method without pouring the strip foundation, then the perimeter of the fence is marked, and the places for installing the corner supports are indicated. For this purpose, the estimated parameters of such a fence are measured. At the nodal points, pieces of reinforcement or wooden stakes are driven in, between which the fishing line is stretched.
At these points, a hand or gasoline drill is used to excavate the soil at a depth of about 70–90 cm. Drilling on stony soils requires special attention, since at high speeds the cutting edge of the tool is damaged and blunt. The traditional alternative to such a drill will always be a crowbar, a shovel and a pickaxe.
Pole supports are twice treated with bitumen varnish to protect the metal from corrosion. After they dry, the concrete is mixed.
Before installing each of the supports, a piece of roofing material folded in half is laid on the bottom of the pit. Then the support is vertically installed in the pit, leveled and poured with concrete with periodic tamping.
If necessary, you can pre-fill the post with stones or small gravel.
Concrete is mixed from 1 part of cement, 4 parts of sand, 6 volumes of crushed stone and water. With this mixture, the pit with the racks is filled to the top. Subsequent work is carried out after the concrete has hardened.
Steel support posts can be installed using a method called "concrete collar". Having a hole 0.5 m deep, the pipe is driven into it another 0.5 m below the bottom and poured with concrete.
In a similar way, work is carried out to excavate soil for pits and install supports in them at the remaining anchor points of the entire perimeter of the territory. When this work is over, intermediate post supports are marked and set up with a step of 2.5 m and corrections for gates and wickets.
After the concreting of all the pillars is completed, it is necessary to wait for the final hardening of the concrete mixture, which lasts about 7 days, so that the concrete gains the strength necessary to withstand the mass of the sheet slate.
While the concrete is hardening, you should start cutting steel strips from a corner, which is cut with a "grinder" into pieces 200-250 mm long. Holes are drilled at the edges of these elements to attach the guides to them. Then these pieces of the corner are welded to the post in the upper and lower parts with indents from the top and bottom of 200-300 mm.
Wooden beams with a cross section of 50 × 130 mm, which are adjusted along the span, will serve as guides for fastening the slate sheets. The timber should be treated with a wood preservative before installing it on the supports.
Then, at the point of attachment of the guide bar to the corners, previously welded to the post supports, through holes are drilled for tie bolts, with which the guide bars are attached to the support.
After that, the slate sheet is placed on the guide bar and leveled. In this case, an indent from the ground, equal to 10 cm, in the lower part of the fence should be observed. The fastening of the slate sheet is carried out with galvanized self-tapping screws with a rubber washer at an attachment pitch of no more than 30 cm, for which a fastening hole is drilled in the sheet.
The sheet slate is attached through the peak of the wave, and for joining the sheets, the upper part of the wave of one sheet is superimposed on the peak of the wave of the sheet of the previous one. If it becomes necessary to cut off some part of the slate sheet with a "grinder", then it must be moistened with water to prevent the appearance of asbestos dust.
Fence decoration
Colored slate of one of the modern brands is a universal way to solve the problem of finishing a fence after its construction. Such a fence will have a look that is not inferior to analogs from rolled metal. It is best to choose its color, taking into account the main color of the surrounding buildings.
If the fence was built from ordinary unpainted gray slate, then its design can be successfully carried out using an acrylic dye of the desired color.
For application on a previously cleaned surface, the latter is treated with a metal brush and covered with an antiseptic.
The paint is applied with a spray gun or a paint brush, which slightly increases the consumption of the dye. After painting, the slate fence not only acquires a more aesthetic appearance, but also receives additional protection in the form of a thin water-repellent layer.
There are special dyes for asbestos-cement surfaces that give them more reliable protection. Such paints for slate are somewhat superior in cost to acrylic compositions, but their service life is much higher.
How to make a slate fence with your own hands, see below.
