Gabion fence with his own hands: how to make a fence of mesh and stone

As a good alternative to fencing, built of brick and stone by traditional technology, modern builders and landscape designers offer to use gabion fences - three-dimensional mesh structures, the inner part of which can be filled with different materials. Traditionally, gabions are made of mesh and stone, but they can be filled with broken bricks and tiles, glass bottles, wood saws, etc..

Gabion fence with stone filling

Choosing different materials to fill gabions, you can give the latter different decorative characteristics, which is successfully used by modern landscape designers. However, extraordinary decorativeness is not the only advantage of gabions, which due to the large mass can withstand extreme snow and wind loads, not prone to deformation over time, even when installed on unstable soil. That is also important, that the installation of a fence of stones, placed in a grid, if we compare this process with the construction of stone and brick buildings using traditional technology, economically more profitable. This benefit is explained by these, that gabions during installation do not require serious deepening, creating a solid foundation and using concrete mortar to connect the stones used.

Types of gabion structures

Gabion constructions, which have been used for a long time, originally used as prefabricated fortifications, including military purposes. A little later, with their help, they began to strengthen the shores of reservoirs, slopes of ravines and hills, as well as arrange terraces on sloping areas. And only relatively recently, landscape designers have drawn attention to the decorative characteristics of gabions, who began to actively use these buildings to decorate residential areas.

Gabions as a retaining wall

Gabion structures are classified on several grounds, such as:

• geometric shape (flat buildings of horizontal type, which are also known as "Renault mattresses"; vertical three-dimensional structures - Jumbo boxes; gabions of cylindrical type);
• the type of grid used (gabions, made of reinforced welded or twisted wire mesh; in the second case, the cell of the grid used has the shape of a hexagon);
• type of filler (gabions with stone filler, etc.).

The main types of gabions

For gabion fences, usually, use vertical three-dimensional boxes, mesh elements which are made of pieces of thick wire, interconnected by welding. Cylindrical mesh structures can be used to further decorate such barriers, which will perform the functions of decorative columns. In the fences, made of gabions, niches are often made, in which garden furniture is easily built in. At the top of such structures, if you pour a layer of fertile soil on them, you can break the flower garden, plant shrubs or even dwarf trees.

If you decide to make a fence of gabions with your own hands, keep in mind, that such structures due to their considerable weight are not suitable for the manufacture of gates and wickets. Meanwhile, to choose for such fences elements of the entrance groups of the appropriate design will not be a big problem, as they integrate well with gates and wickets, in the design of which artistic forging and ordinary metal are used.

Gates and gates in gabion structures are fixed on poles, pre-installed inside the frames

Using fences, made of gabions, rather than barrier structures of the traditional type, you can successfully solve many problems, in particular:

• create barriers in the middle of the reservoir or on its shoreline;
• erect fences on plots, characterized by complex relief;
• erect reliable and attractive barrier structures on weak soil.

How to make a fence from gabions

Fences made of stones, placed in a metal mesh, as mentioned above, are erected without the use of concrete mortar, therefore, their elements have some mobility. This design feature of gabions allows not to consider at their construction shrinkage and swelling of soil within 5-10 div. If even the movement of soil within the above limits occurs, then such a fence will not collapse and will not undergo significant deformation: the stones will simply be redistributed and take a different position.

At design designing and a choice of material for filling of a fence from gabions it is necessary to consider the following nuances.

• Big stones, which in the design of gabions look very beautiful, are quite expensive. If the erected fence has a significant width, then only its external walls can be decorated with such stones, and fill the inside with fine gravel or construction debris, which are wrapped in geotextile.
• For erection of a fence from gabions it is possible not to fill in the base. If their inner part is covered with small pebbles, then the frames of buildings must be deepened into the ground to a depth 20-40 cm
• Great spatial rigidity of the gabion is achieved through the use of large stone as a filler and more accurate laying. Fences, created from gabions with such a filler, it is possible to erect even without use of protective grids and to carry out their installation even on a soil surface, removing only the arable layer from it.
• If light materials are chosen as gabion fence filler (wooden saws, etc.), then such structures should be mounted on a layer of bedding material, as which you can use gravel.