Practical guidance on choosing, ordering and looking after woven wire fencing and gates, written from 30-plus years of making them in Somerton.
The single biggest cause of a delayed order is a guessed measurement. Our pedestrian gates are built to a 1000mm standard opening between posts, and driveway gates to 3000mm, but neither has to be standard; if your opening is wider or narrower, we make the gate to suit rather than asking you to move your posts.
Measure between the posts themselves, not the fence line either side, and measure at both the top and bottom of the opening; older brick or bluestone posts are rarely perfectly parallel. If the two measurements differ, give us the smaller one and mention the difference; it changes how much clearance we build into the frame.
Powder coat colours look different on a small swatch than they do across three metres of woven wire in daylight. Darker tones like Night Sky or Ironstone read almost black in a chart but pick up a visible warmth outdoors, while lighter tones like Surfmist or Classic Cream can look brighter against a red brick home than they do against the render sample.
Where possible, view the colour against your actual brickwork or cladding rather than a screen, and check it at the time of day you'll see the fence most; a colour that reads well at midday can sit quite differently in late afternoon light. If you're between two colours, call the factory; Trish can talk you through which of our regulars tend to suit which brick tones.
Emu Wire isn't cut from a stocked panel; every roll is woven to order, in 1 metre increments above a 5 metre minimum. That means the picket spacing runs true across the whole length of your fence rather than compressing or gapping at a join, and it means odd-length runs, the 7.4 metre side return, the awkward angle around a garden bed, cost the same per metre as a straight run.
The trade-off is lead time: made-to-order work is scheduled, not pulled off a shelf, so ordering as early as you can in your project gives the factory room to fit your run in without rushing it.
Timber picket fencing is the more familiar heritage look, but it's not always the more accurate one; many Victorian and Edwardian homes were originally fenced in wrought iron or woven wire, with timber picket becoming common later as a cheaper substitute. Woven wire also does something picket fencing can't: it defines a boundary without hiding the garden behind it, which matters if the front garden is doing a lot of the work in a period home's street presence.
It's a maintenance trade-off either way; timber needs repainting, woven wire needs the coating looked after per our care guide. Neither is "lower maintenance" so much as different maintenance.
Call the factory directly or send your measurements by email. Trish and the team quote most jobs within a day.
