Vinyl fencing

I used to instal vinyl fences working for a company. I can't remember the time it takes to put one in, but they are a lot more time consuming than a wood fence. The company I worked for had a hydraulic router table set up in a shop to auger out the holes. We had notching tools to put notches in the rails so when you slide them in the posts they can't come out, the notching tools are specially made.

If you only have one fence to build, I would make a router template out of plywood for your posts. And to make it so the rails can't come out, I think there is a way to drill holes in the rails and put in some rings with pins in them instead of notching them. That way you wouldn't have to get a notching tool, but check that, ask the manufacturer. And get some vinyl glue too.

Some tricks I learned for installing is if the rails aren't very flexible, add the rails to the posts as you are concreting the posts in. If the rails are thin and flexible, then add the rails after all the posts are in. Also, if you have non-flexible rails, if you do some planning you can cut the rails tight so you only have to notch or add pins in the first set of rails, then the rest of them won't come out. You need to router out holes for the pickets too in the rails.

And if the fence is on a slope, you have to check the angle of the slope and design where to auger the holes in your posts, the holes will have to be wider too, to accommodate for the slope.

I think it takes about twice as long as a wood fence. So if you figure two days for a wood fence, then four days for a vinyl. But honestly if you've never built one, it might take you about three times longer. Maybe bid five days and do some good planning.

Going to depend on who makes it and fastening method, we've done ALOT of the cheap vinyl panels for folks round here on a budget and they're the ones with the brackets that slide in the ends of each panel and then are screwed to the posts through these brackets. Biggest thing for these projects is spacing, i like to take and cut a 2x4 to the length needed....all these cheap ones seem to be 67" between posts, or 6' o.c. whatever you wanna do, i just prefer to use the 67" 2x4 and bump posts as i go.

The hardest part is setting the posts since that's kinda critical, and i would absolutely say a 2 person job to expedite it faster and correctly since 320' of fence is alot of posts for s single man to bore, space, level, and cement...54-60 posts depending on layout and openings. The sections themselves go up very very fast, again, i would'nt do it with only one guy, the panels are larger enough they're bulky for 1 guy, and a second set of hands speeds it up expotentially..it can be done by one guy, but not worth the fight. 2 of us installed 64 panels in 4 hours, and that was with one guy holding/leveling the panel and the other guy running the screw gun attaching them to the posts, then i'd take off after another section while he finish tacking/screwing....and then after they're all hung we'd both get on finish screwing the panels securely.

Post set up takes the longest since it's critical, hanging is fast, just the opposite of wood fencing LOL!!