Strimming at Fence

BarraOG

I have a picket fence around my house. There is a gap of an inch or so underneath it. I am thinking of getting my first strimmer to tidy up the grass along this fence and stop it touching the fence, which can cause rot over time, but I don’t know much about strimmers. Is it possible to strim right up to and even under the fence with damaging the fence?

homer911

Absolutely, just angle the strimmer accordingly. If you do hit the fence with the nylon cord, you are more likely to break it than the fence

The Continental Op

I was giving this some thought as I strim around a lot of wooden structures - mainly chicken runs.

If you don't have a huge area and are going to do the job regularly then I'd recommend one of the battery strimmers. Its a bit expensive but my wife bought the DeWalt DCM561P1S which comes with one battery and charger. The great thing about it and other similar battery powered tools is that you can just pick it up and use it no messing with cables or fuel.

Now the reason I recommend this one or at least this size and class of machine is that its underpowered for tough work but that means it uses relatively thin strimmer line 2mm. It has a two speed settings both variable. On the slowest setting which I use it around the chicken runs it cuts a couple or more weeks of grass down and does next to no damage to the timber, there just isn't enough power to do any damage. On the other hand if I do the same job with my Husqvarna 40 something CC brush cutter with 3 mm strimmer line even at low revs I have to be very careful not to cut into the wood. If you don't have concrete posts then you are going to have to cut up close to timber in some places.

The other option in a small garden is a mains powered strimmer they work well enough but its a pain to be dragging a powerlead around and to get it out and put it away afterwards.

For a small garden then this looks like a good deal Titan TTI821GGT but I'd also get another battery to go with it.

By the way no matter how careful you are if you are cutting within a couple of inches of something I can guarantee you will hit it occasionally.

The other options are a concrete mowing stip under the fence edge or carefully spraying off a mowing strip.

If you have a garden big enough for a petrol strimmer then any of the ones that Screwfix do are a good deal but avoid any with a curved shaft where the end of the shaft has a curve above where it connects to the strimmer head. Its the mass and speed of the line that does the damage so a thinner line at lower speeds will do the least damage.

Jim_Hodge

Absolutely fine with a strimmer around or under a fence. I've been doing it for decades with no ill effects. Any standard garden strimmer will do such as the flymo revolution. Any of the light strimmer's. I wouldn't go expensive and an electric corded one is fine. I strim and edge lawns with one on a 3/4 acre site with no difficulty. It's no big deal having a light cord and an extension lead. I'm ab OAP and I can manage no problem.