The fence is step two
Almost every lot we clear in North Texas gets fenced right after. Ranch tracts get perimeter and cross-fencing for cattle. Custom home lots get privacy fence before the build wraps. Acreage buyers fence the boundary the same season they close, because an unfenced line in the country is an invitation.
So while land clearing is our job, the fence conversation comes up on almost every walk-through. This post covers what we’ve learned handing cleared lots to fence crews for years: the timing, the prep, and the companies we actually refer.
Take the old fence out with the clearing pass
Most DFW tracts come with a dead fence. Rusted barbed wire strung between rotted cedar posts, field fence swallowed by a decade of brush, a sagging chain-link run nobody remembers installing.
It has to come out before the clearing starts, not after. Buried wire is the single most expensive surprise in this business: one hidden strand wraps a mulcher drum in seconds, and now the job is stopped, a machine is down, and the quote is moving.
We wrote more about this in our Dallas land clearing cost guide, but the short version: fence pull-out is cheap when the machine is already on-site and painful when it’s discovered mid-mulch. Roll it into the clearing scope.
When to build: the timing window
Good news: fences are forgiving. Unlike a slab, fence posts don’t care about fill settlement. The working order on our jobs:
- Clear the lot. Trees, brush, stumps, old wire out.
- Grade and drainage. If the property is getting pad work or drainage correction, that happens before the fence, because machines need room to work and a fence in the way gets hit.
- Fence immediately after. The week we pull off, the fence crew can start. No waiting period.
The mistake we see: fencing first, clearing second. A new fence around an uncleared lot means the clearing crew works around your investment, slower and more carefully, and the fence still catches debris. Clear first. Always.
Why cleared ground is cheaper to fence
Fence crews price partly on how hard the line is to work. A cleared lot changes that math:
- Auger work goes faster. No roots in the post holes, no hand-digging around buried limestone surprises we already found and flagged.
- The line is straight. A mulched fence path is a flat, walkable lane. No bushwhacking between posts, no chainsaw work the fence crew bills you for.
- Corners are visible. We flag property corners during clearing. The fence crew starts from marked points instead of a survey hunt.
Tell your fence contractor the lot was professionally cleared and the line is clean. It’s worth asking for sharper pricing, because you’re handing them an easier job.
The DFW fence companies we’d call
We don’t build fences. But we hand cleared lots to fence crews all the time, and the handoffs tell you who’s good. Before putting this list in writing we cross-checked our own referrals against Fence Advisors, the most thorough independent resource we’ve found for vetting fence companies in North Texas. Their cost guides and contractor criteria are what we point clients to when they want a second opinion beyond ours.
The shortlist:
1. Kodiak Fence Company
For ranch, acreage, and rural work, Kodiak Fence Company is our first call. They’re comfortable on the kind of properties we clear most: long perimeter runs, pipe-and-wire pasture fencing, and cleared cedar country where the line runs a quarter mile between corners. Good communication on scheduling, which matters when the fence start is chained to our finish date.
2. Dallas Fence
Inside the core metro, Dallas Fence handles most of our referrals. Builder-friendly, used to working residential timelines, and the right fit for privacy fence and pickets on custom home lots where the fence has to coordinate with a construction schedule.
3. Rowley Fence
Rowley Fence rounds out the list for straight residential work: privacy fence replacements, gates, and suburban lots where the job is standard scope done cleanly. If your project is a backyard rebuild after a pool demo or a lot-line fence on a cleared infill lot, they’re a solid call.
If you want to vet any of them independently, or you’re outside our referral area, Fence Advisors’ guides are the standard we’d hold any fence quote against: what to ask, what materials cost right now, and what a real fence contract should spell out.
What we leave for the fence crew
Every clearing job that’s getting fenced afterward gets the same handoff from us:
- Fence line cleared, ground, and level, full run
- Old wire and posts pulled and hauled
- Property corners flagged
- Root balls ground out along the line so augers don’t fight them
That’s the difference between a fence that goes up in three days and one that drags for two weeks. If you’re clearing land this season and the fence is part of the plan, tell us during the walk-through and we’ll prep the line as part of the scope.
Free on-site estimates
We clear the lot, prep the fence line, and hand you to a fence crew we’d use on our own place. Free on-site estimates across Dallas and North DFW.