How to attach wire trellis onto a Colorbond fence and shed?

[jono1983]

Hi Team

I have a corner of a garden where I plan on growing climbing plants to hide our fence as well as our shed.

I am looking at installing wire trellis so that my plants can grow upwards. 

I am assuming I need to use some kind of wood and attach it to the fence, and then drill eye hooks down the wood and then I can feed the wire into it and run it down the fence and shed.

I want to make sure i bring the wire forward of the fence so that the heat of the metal doesn’t burn the leaves.

I guess my main questions are

1. what type of wood do I need to use?  don’t want termites or the wood rotting from the water.
2. how would I go about attaching the wood to the fence?  The fence I am guessing I would attach it to the vertical piers, but what type of screws or system would I use to attach?

3. How would I do about attaching this to the shed?  Unlike the fence the shed doesn’t have piers.

thank you!!

 

 

[EricL]

Hello @jono1983

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. It's wonderful to have you join us, and thank you for sharing your question about how to attach wire trellis to your Colorbond fence and shed.

I suggest using Porta 40 x 18mm 2.4m Treated Pine DAR to be attached from post to post. In order to increase the distance between the timber and the Colorbond fence, you can use Carinya 50 x 50 x 20 x 4mm Galvanised Angle Bracket - 4 Pack to be placed on the end of each long timber piece. Painting the timber piece will add an extra layer of protection and will make it last longer. I recommend using Buildex 14 - 10 x 25mm Climaseal Hex Head With Seal Metal Cladding Tek Screws to attach the angle brackets to the Colorbond post. You then attach the timber to the angle brackets and then attach the trellis to the long pieces of timber.

Attaching to the shed will be a bit trickier. I suggest pre-drilling your mounting holes so that you will know where the angle bracket will be attached. I suggest putting a timber backing on the inside wall of the shed for you to drill in. This will then hold the angle bracket in place in order for you to attach the long timber piece. I've placed a sketch below for you to see how it will be attached. 

If the distance I've recommended is too far, you can attach the timber directly onto the fence post but the gap will be around 20mm only. Usually, screws are drilled into the top of the Colorbond fence and the wire is simply wound onto it. If you go with my recommendation, It's important that you use a lightweight trellis only or wire mesh so that the long timber piece will not droop or sag. It sounds like a great project for climbing plants. Any updates you can provide while building it would be much appreciated.

Here is an excellent guide to give you ideas and inspiration: How to create privacy by planting by @Adam_W

Here is a link to a featured project shared by our Workshop member: Training climbers to screen a fence by @royq

Let me tag our experienced members @TedBear and @JoeAzza for their recommendations.

If you need more advice or information, please let us know.

Eric

[joe_edgell]

Interesting read, thanks EricL.

I'm looking at doing something similar, mounting the timber to the steel posts of our colourbond fence, as well as the top and bottom rails, because I'd like to run tensioned ss wire in both verticals and horizontals. Verticals would be 2.5 m on my fence, then horizontals would cross a few panels so several metres in total.

Would your suggestion also work if I simply screw the timber directly onto the steel posts using the tek screws rather than using the brackets? I appreciate this would result in a smaller gap between the surface of the fence and the wire trellis, but would it be more secure for holding the tensioned wire?

Also, what's the best approach to ensioning wire? I.e. when tensioning the ss wire, I assume I don't need to have a turn buckle on every horizontal  and every vertical. Could I run a really long length back and forth horizontally to span the several metres and simply have a single turn buckle at each end to tension the whole thing? Same for the verticals. Any suggestions on how to do this and what wire, eye hooks, turn buckles, etc I'd need would be a huge help, I've not tried this or balustrading before.

I realise I've just written this and been lazy without looking at the links you provided first so I might find some answers there. Any suggestions welcome though.

Thanks. 

[EricL]

Hello @joe_edgell 

The quick answer is yes, you can mount the timber directly to the post and to the rails. The trick to tensioning the wire is to use the smaller gauged galvanized wires starting at 1+ up to 1.6. Anything thicker becomes hard to tension. It's also important to wrap the wire in clockwise direction so that when the screw turns it applies pulling pressure to the wire as it tightens.

I suggest having a quick look at this discussion - Climbers to dress up Colorbond fence by @royq. You'll find some excellent recommendations on how to attach the wire guides.

If you need further assistance, please let us know.

Eric