How many metres of fence, posts and panels does your Orange block need?
A typical Orange quarter acre block, about 1,000 square metres at 20m by 50m, has around 120 metres of boundary and usually gets 90 to 100 metres of it fenced, because the front stays open. A single rear boundary is 18 to 22 metres. One side run from the house line to the back is 30 to 40 metres. At 2.4m bays, 40 metres needs 17 panels and 18 posts, and those 18 holes swallow about a cubic metre of concrete. Size it below, then price it.
Fence quantity and price estimator
Set the length of fence line and the estimator sizes and prices the job. It answers how big, not just what it costs, so use the metres and gate counts to check any quote you have already been given.
What this estimate assumes
- Colorbond at 1.8m is the base rate at $90 to $130 per metre. Timber, height and ground conditions scale from there.
- Posts at 2.4m bays in 300mm holes, 750mm deep, which is our standard for Orange frost and reactive basalt clay.
- Gate allowance covers a pedestrian gate with adjustable hinges and a latch, and it scales with the material and height you pick.
- Old fence removal is allowed at a typical 30m to 50m run. Much longer jobs are quoted per metre at $15 to $35.
- Excludes retaining walls, boundary surveys, engineered wind design and pool barrier certification. Pool fencing is priced separately on the pool fencing page.
- Rural fencing is quoted per 100m rather than per metre. Use the rural fencing page and the worked paddock numbers below.
How to measure your fence line properly, in about 15 minutes
- Find the corners first. Look for survey pegs or the old fence corner posts. If the pegs are there, photograph each one with a shoe or a tape in the frame so you can prove where it was. If they are gone and your neighbour agrees the old fence is on the line, work off the old fence.
- Use a 30m open reel tape, not a builder’s 8m tape. Two people, dragged along the ground on the actual line, not held up in the air and not stretched across a corner. A phone measuring app is fine as a sanity check and useless as a quote basis.
- Measure each run separately and label it. Sketch the block on paper, mark the runs A, B and C, and write the metres on each. Photograph the sketch. That single photo saves more confusion than anything else you can do.
- Note the fall. Stand at one end and sight along. If the ground drops more than about a step over a 2.4m bay, the panels will need stepping, which changes the post count and the panel heights. Take a photo down the line from both ends.
- Mark the obstacles. Trees within a metre of the line, the water meter, the sewer or septic run, the air conditioner, downpipes, the clothesline, and anything that changes where a post can physically go. Peg your irrigation.
- Photograph the access. The gap down the side of the house, the front gate width, and the kerb. If a barrow cannot get through, the labour changes.
Rules of thumb and how much to allow for waste
| Fence line | Bays at 2.4m | Posts, single run | Panels | Concrete at 300mm x 750mm | 20kg bags if mixing by hand | Spoil to cart away |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10m | 5 | 6 | 5 | 0.32 cubic metres | 36 | 0.4 cubic metres |
| 20m | 9 | 10 | 9 | 0.53 cubic metres | 60 | 0.7 cubic metres |
| 30m | 13 | 14 | 13 | 0.74 cubic metres | 84 | 0.9 cubic metres |
| 40m | 17 | 18 | 17 | 0.95 cubic metres | 108 | 1.2 cubic metres |
| 60m | 25 | 26 | 25 | 1.38 cubic metres | 156 | 1.7 cubic metres |
| 100m | 42 | 43 | 42 | 2.28 cubic metres | 258 | 2.9 cubic metres |
- Posts. Bays plus one for each separate run, plus one at every corner, plus two heavier posts for every gate. Corner posts are shared between two runs, so do not count them twice.
- Wastage. Allow 5 per cent on rails, screws and palings. There is always one cut bay per run, because boundaries are never a neat multiple of 2.4 metres.
- Ground clearance. Leave 50mm to 100mm under a Colorbond panel or run a plinth. A panel sitting in wet clay is the fastest way to void a sheet warranty.
- Gate widths. 0.9m to 1.0m for a pedestrian gate, 3.0m to 3.6m for a double vehicle gate, and 4.5m or wider for a truck or a float on a rural entrance. Measure the mower and the wheelie bin before you settle on a pedestrian gate.
- Rural. Hinge joint comes in 100m rolls. Star pickets every 4m to 5m, strainer assemblies at every corner and about every 150m to 200m of straight run. An 800m paddock perimeter is 8 rolls plus 4 corner assemblies.
Rather we measured it?
The free measure takes half an hour, checks the ground for rock and fall, and produces a fixed written quote in 2 business days. No obligation.
A real Orange block, added up
Take a common North Orange block: 20 metres wide, 48 metres deep, 960 square metres, a brick home set 10 metres back from the front boundary. The owner wants the rear and both sides done and the front left open, with a pedestrian gate on one side and a double gate on the other for the trailer.
- Rear boundary: 20 metres.
- Side A, from the front building line to the rear corner: 38 metres, less a 1.0 metre pedestrian gate, so 37 metres of fence.
- Side B, same length: 38 metres, less a 3.0 metre double gate, so 35 metres of fence.
- Total fence line: 92 metres, plus 4 metres of gate openings.
- Posts: rear 9 bays and 10 posts, side A 16 bays and 17 posts, side B 15 bays and 16 posts, less 2 shared corner posts, plus 2 heavier gate posts. That is 43 posts.
- Concrete: 43 holes at 300mm by 750mm is about 2.3 cubic metres, or roughly 2.9 cubic metres of spoil once it is dug out and bulked up. Around three trailer loads.
Now the money, at 2026 Orange rates for 1.8m Colorbond:
- 92 metres at $90 to $130 per metre: $8,280 to $11,960
- Pedestrian gate: $450 to $750
- Double swing vehicle gate, 3.0m: $1,200 to $2,200
- Removing and disposing of the old fence, 92 metres at $15 to $35: $1,380 to $3,220
- Total: $11,310 to $18,130, before any neighbour contribution
Both side boundaries and the rear are dividing fences, so under the NSW Dividing Fences Act 1991 the adjoining owners normally contribute half of the fence of a sufficient standard, though not half of a gate that only benefits you. On a job like this the owner’s real out of pocket usually lands between $6,000 and $10,000. If that is more than you had in mind, the staging options are on the budget boundary fence page.
The sizing mistake that costs the most here
Forgetting the returns. Almost every homeowner measures the three boundaries and forgets the short sections that run from the corners of the house out to the side boundary. On a typical Orange block that is another 6 to 12 metres of fence, two more gate posts, and $600 to $1,600 that was not in your head when you set the budget. The second one is treating a fall as flat. Orange blocks in Clifton Grove and on the Canobolas side often drop a metre or more across a side boundary, and stepping panels down that fall adds a post at each step and pushes some panels to the next height up. The third is ordering to the plan dimension rather than the ground dimension: the deposited plan gives you the horizontal distance, and a fence run over undulating ground is always a little longer.
When you should not trust your own measurement
If the survey pegs are missing and your neighbour has a different idea of where the line sits, stop measuring and get a boundary identification survey. In the Central West that is roughly $1,200 to $2,200 in 2026, and it is dramatically cheaper than taking down a finished fence that turns out to be 300mm onto someone else’s land. The same applies if there is a retaining wall, an easement or a drainage reserve involved. We will always tell you at the measure when we think a surveyor is the right call, even though it delays the job, and the council rules that go with it are on fence council approval in Orange. Rural blocks around Borenore and the villages are quoted per 100 metres, not per metre, so measure the paddock sides in hundreds and tell us the total.
Sizing questions we get asked
How many metres of fencing do I need for a typical Orange block?
How many posts do I need for a 40m fence?
How much concrete goes into a fence post hole?
What is the most expensive measuring mistake in Orange?
Do I need a surveyor to find my boundary?
How much fencing do I need for a rural paddock?
Send us your measurements and we will size it properly
Send your run lengths, or just the address, and we will measure on site and email a fixed written quote with the post and panel counts listed, within 2 business days.
Get the metres, the posts and the price in one document
Free measure across Orange, Lucknow, Spring Hill, Millthorpe, Clifton Grove and Borenore, with a fixed written quote in 2 business days.