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Yesterday I came home from work thinking "Ah, a relaxing evening", never imagining anything outside of what my wife and I now define as "ordinary" (things get weird when you have your mother, who has dementia, living with you). Never did I think this would be here to greet me when I got home...

Our house was built in 1973, by Continental Homes. They were a large builder here in the Phoenix area for many years, and as such they built many homes, most of them in the west valley (it seems), where we live. Continental built pretty nice homes for the era, but one could argue that they cheaped-out when it came to fencing. Then again, these fences still stand in most areas, so a 30+ year old fence made cheaply isn't too bad, I guess. Anyhow, here are the pictures; I apologize for the quality, I took them with my new camera and it was getting dark...

Our Sad Fence Questions or Comments?

 

Our Sad Fence 2 Questions or Comments?

 

Our Sad Fence 3 Questions or Comments?

We have been having some interesting winds lately, some of them fairly high for this time of year, which is what ultimately caused the fence to topple. We knew when we bought the house that we would have to replace the fence some day, we just didn't know when. We also kinda figured that it would be the back fence, instead of the side fencing which separates us from our neighbor's house. I guess we were lucky in one sense; The fence fell into our yard, had it fallen the other direction, it could have taken out the power transformer (and phone) for our homes!

Those panels are really heavy. They are made out of concrete reinforced with chicken wire with a steel frame. They are about 2 x 8 feet in size, and maybe 3 inches thick. They are set between welded steel "I-beams", and I am pretty certain there isn't a footer below the panels (I am not even certain that the beams were set in concrete, to tell the truth). The panels have settled in the dirt, and the I-beams have rusted through - it was only a matter of time.

Now we wait for our insurance adjuster to tell us what they'll pay. We have American Family Insurance, and they have been pretty good to us with our cars, but I guess we'll see how they handle a "big" claim on our home...

Fun, fun, fun!