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Instant fence & deck estimate
01 / 09Toronto, Ontario
A straight answer on whether your fence is worth keeping, with the posts probed at grade — and a line-item price for the replacement when it is not.
Most Toronto fence repair calls start the same way: a run that was fine in October is leaning into the neighbour's hostas by April. The cause is almost always the same too. The post rotted at grade, where the wood meets soil, and one wet freeze cycle finished it. Toronto averages 108 cm of snow a year against a winter mean near -3.5C, which is not extreme, but the lake keeps the city cycling above and below freezing all winter instead of staying frozen. That cycling is what breaks posts here.
Toronto's oldest residential blocks were laid out before setbacks were standardised, so a lot line through Leslieville, Riverdale or Parkdale often runs at an angle no stock panel follows. That matters for repair more than for new work. A section pulled out of an angled run cannot be replaced with a bought panel; the rails get cut and set on site to the angle that is already there. We also cannot get an auger into most of these yards. Where a post has to come out on a semi in Parkdale or a narrow lot in The Beaches, the hole is dug by hand and the old concrete is broken out rather than poured around, because a second collar around a rotted stub just moves the failure a season.
Permits come from Toronto Building. Repairing an existing fence at its existing height does not need one. Raising it does, and the city's height limits are enforced on complaint, so a straightened run that comes back taller than it was is the one repair that generates a call from the by-law office.
Our rule on a Toronto fence repair estimate is simple. Below roughly a third of posts soft at grade we repair by section. Above it, replacement is the cheaper answer over ten years, and we say so.
Lots here are narrow and most have no side drive, so posts, rails and concrete come down a walkway by hand and the spoil goes back out the same way. That crew time is real, and it puts Toronto work in the upper part of the range shown above rather than the middle. Snowfall runs about 108 cm a year here, and that is what sets the railing and substructure spec rather than the fence rate. Footings go below the 120 cm frost line either way.
Often yes, but not by augering. A large-caliper tree on or near the line puts the root zone under municipal tree protection, and a 120 cm hole inside that zone is a stop-work risk. Where the run passes a mature maple we switch that bay to a surface-mounted or offset post and carry the load on the neighbouring footings instead. If the only workable option is a hole inside the root zone, that becomes a permit conversation with Toronto Building before anyone digs.
Access, not length. Through Leslieville, Riverdale and Parkdale the lot is often 15 to 20 feet wide with no driveway, so posts, rails and concrete come down a walkway by hand and the spoil goes back out the same way. That is real crew time and it lands in the quote separately from the material. On a Scarborough or Brampton lot with a side drive the same repair carries less of it.
Panel work, rail replacement and gate hardware, yes. Toronto's winter mean sits near -3.5C and it takes about 108 cm of snow a year, which is the mildest winter in our service area, so the ground is workable more often than people expect. A post that has to go to 120 cm in frozen clay is the exception: we either wait for a thaw window or set it on a screw pile, which is what our April to November season note means by winter installs on piles.
