AB Fence Ashlar Blend – St. Thomas Estate

With new subdivisions popping up all over Tauranga and the surrounding areas, the developers of the St. Thomas Estate in Pyes Pa, wanted their development to stand out, to be an special and inviting place to live with a sense of community. 

Other subdivisions in the area had previously utilized wooden fencing, which was deteriorating faster than houses were being built, so this was not an option. To enhance the street appeal of the busy road and the main entrance, the options were reduced to either a painted plaster over masonry block or the Allan Block (AB®) Fence. Initially costings were put together to compare the completed costs of constructing both fences, based on 500m long by 1.8m high panels with columns. The plastered fence proved to be the more expensive option to construct without considering the added cost of re-painting in future years. However, this was still an attractive option.

The Allan Block Ashlar Blend Fence was chosen for these costings as aesthetically it could look the same on both sides of the fence. Colour trials for a special three colour blend were conducted and a sample fence was erected for the developers to view. The decision was then made to proceed with AB® Fence.

Design

Bowers Brothers Concrete supplied the developer with an initial design of the AB® Fence, which considered the high wind zone, the exposed nature of the site, and the soil conditions for the area. Providing a design plan, detailing the post spacing and post depths for the developer’s engineer to approve and sign it off. 

After surveying the site, the engineer came back with the Local Council’s requirements to upgrade the storm water system along one of the once rural roads. This now required that approximately 38 meters of where the fence would run would require retaining of a height up to 0.9m. A second area of concern was a section of the fence than would run along the top of a retaining wall on the neighbouring property that may be earmarked for future development. In which case the retaining wall may be removed during development. 

Bowers Brothers were able to supply simple solutions to the engineer for both of these issues. For the section that required retention the fence was redesigned to also be the retaining wall. The part of the fence that would act as retaining wall would be solid filled, and behind it no-fines concrete would be added to create the mass required to retain the soil and any extra load. For the section over the existing retaining wall, extra post footing depth was added so if the retaining wall was removed the fence would not be undermined. 

The engineer commented on how simple and effective the design process working with Bowers Brothers for the AB® Fence was.

Installation

Nearly a year after the initial consultation, construction began. The installation was divided into two stages; the first stage encompassed 235 lineal meters while the second stage was formed by an extra 300 lineal meters of AB® Fence, making a total wall area of 996 square meters. 

Alicon Limited were chosen to complete the build. Having completed the Allan Block Fence Contractor Training and with experience building a few smaller fences, John Graham and his guys were the right fit and were very excited to undertake a project of this size. 

The site engineers laid out the profiles to ensure no part of the fence or the footings were on Council land. The biggest challenge faced by Alicon was digging through the tree roots from the shelter belt trees that had previously stood along the boundary of what had once been a kiwi fruit orchard. The crew paid special attention to post pile placement to avoid having to cut panel blocks and to blending blocks of multiple pallets to ensure a random colour blend, flipping blocks to create a beautiful aesthetic look on both sides of the fence. This was made easier having the supplied Ashlar Blend pattern chart to follow. 

The Alicon team was also amazed with the interest this project was creating with people appearing every day to take photos and comment on the fence.