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Portable Fence Panels: Perfect as a Temporary Fence for Renters

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temporary fencing installed
This panel fencing is long lasting, easy to move and easy to install. It’s also attractive.

Portable fence panels are perfect to use as a temporary fence if you’re renting a home or plan to move. Learn more about them, as well as other options for temporary fencing.

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When we initially set up our fencing for the “dog duty” area at our old house, we wanted something that was temporary and movable in case we changed the layout of our property. We ended up purchasing the Lowes Grand Empire Fence panels and eventually installed it around our duck coop as well. In November 2018, we moved to our new house which is on 8.5 acres and we decided to take our fencing with us. 

This has been a great experience because we discovered that the portable fence panels are easy to move and perfect for temporary fencing if you are renting or plan to move. They are also one of the keys to making farm chores easier on yourself.

Portable Fence Panels

We have used the Grand Empire fence panels from Lowes to contain both our dog and ducks (who had clipped wings to prevent them flying over it). While the fence is sturdy enough to hold our dog in, we did find that the entry gate wasn’t very strong. We used a huge clip to hold the gate closed. Home Depot sells similar panels, the Hampton Bay Empire Panels but they’re shorter. 

Lowe’s Version: Grand Empire Fence Panels

  • Grand Empire Fence Panel: No Dig Decorative Fence x 10 panels (Item #254097) ($29.98 each)
  • Empire Grand Post/Stakes x 12 (Item #254102) ($8.98 each)
  • Grand Empire XL Gate x 1 (Item #758832) ($44.98)

Home Depot Version: Hampton Bay Empire Fence Panels 

Here’s a quick comparison between the two different fences. Their physical appearance and installation process look similar, except for the size differences.

Comparison of two options for temporary fencing panels.

How to Move Your Temporary Fence

Your main priority with moving these fence panels is to plan ahead. You’ll need to make sure that you’re not trying to remove the fencing while the ground is frozen because it would be impossible to retrieve your spikes. On a nice day, go ahead and pull out all of your poles. Stack your panels somewhere convenient so you’ll be able to get them to the moving truck. I recommend using some packing tape to wrap them together. 

Fence panels piled up from moving.
Fence panels piled up from moving. I recommend storing them standing up.

The hardest part of the project- besides moving it all- is digging up the spikes. You just need to work to carefully pull them up.

Fence spikes in ground
These spikes go into the ground to hold your panels and poles in place. Make sure to remove them before the ground freezes.

We used a 5 gallon bucket to hold the spikes for our move. 


Longevity of the Fence

We initially installed these in 2016 and then installed more of the panels around our duck coop later on. The duck coop was sitting in a particularly wet area of our yard so those panels likely got more wear and tear from the soil and the rain than the panels up above that we used for the dog.

Despite being almost three years old, the fence panels show few signs of wear and tear. There’s a bit of rust on a few of the lower circles where the pole goes through, as well as rust on a few of the pole ends. This makes sense, but I was surprised at how well they did overtime for us. 

The fence panels themselves still look great. 

We live in Maryland so they’ve experienced a lot of rain and occasionally snow, as well as 90-100 degree heat in the summer.


The Installation Process

I’ve had the opportunity to install T posts with welded wire, and I found that the fence panels were a bit easier to install. They’re definitely the more expensive option, but I was able to install them myself when we moved, although the fence looked better when two of us installed it the first time.

I’m not going to get into the full tutorial on how to install them because I already wrote a tutorial for that here: Click here to learn how to install the fence panels.

Black fence panels
You’ll setup two of these panels side by side, overlapping the “O” area then slide the pole through. The pole is inserted into the spike in the ground.

You might like the following products in my shop! Keep scrolling for movable fencing ideas!

Other Temporary Fencing Options

There are plenty of other portable fence options, depending on how much you want to spend and how attractive you want the final project to be. If you don’t live in a fussy community, you can get away with more.

Option 1: T Posts and Pallets

Many people like to use old pallets for fencing. They install the T posts, then place pallets vertically over them. I haven’t truly committed to doing this, but I put a couple posts up and attempted to lift pallets onto them. First, pallets are heavy to lift so this is probably a two person job.

Second, I felt like the T posts (the ones I was using which aren’t great) didn’t support the pallets well against the heavy winds we get in our area. I certainly could have given this a better test run, but I didn’t bother.

Between lifting the pallets and digging the post holes by hand, you’ll want to get some strong help.

The one thing about using pallets is that you need a good supplier and a good vehicle to haul them with. A fence will use a LOT of pallets.

Option 2: T Posts and Welded Wire Fencing

You can also install T posts with welded wire fencing, like we did in our goat pen. This was fairly simple to do, although I struggled more to get the T posts into our solid, rocky soil than I did with the fence panels. The reason is that the fence panels don’t go as deep at the T posts. The depth makes the T posts a slightly more stable option, particularly for keeping out larger animals and keeping animals like goats inside. 

The other difficult thing about installing the T posts is stretching the welded wire tight for each pole. I have friends who have stretched it using a tractor and others had a friend/spouse help. The important thing is that you need two people to get them tight. I installed ours by myself and the areas that I didn’t have my husband to help are too loose. I’ll need to redo them eventually. 

With the T posts, you may want to install a gate and a couple of wood posts. The wood posts are going to be more difficult to move, although it’s feasible. This guy has a video on installing a gate with a T post though so maybe it can be done without wood.

Supplies for Welded Wire and T Post Fencing

  • Welded wire fencing at 4′ height and 100′ length runs $80 or so. We started with 5′ fencing for the goat area, but ended up buying 4′ to fence the field because it was more economical.
  • You’ll NEED a T Post Driver. I did it without one, but it was horrible. 
  • These clips hold the wire fencing to the T posts, but my friend says she uses heavy duty zip ties.
  • T Posts that are the correct height for your fence.

In terms of the distance for T post placement, usually 8-12′ apart is the standard. This is a really useful article on the distance you should use for different animals and different fencing materials.

5' welded wire fencing with T posts holding it up, as well as one wood post where the gate will be.

Option 3: Temporary Electric Fencing

This may be a bad option, depending on your goal. You don’t want to have trouble because the neighborhood kids accidentally brushed up against it and got shocked. But electric fencing is a great option for garden or coop fencing and can keep animals in or out. 

If you buy an electric fence, you need to also make sure to pick up the device that electrifies it. Some use a battery and others use a solar panel.

We hadn’t tried this when I originally wrote this point, but since then I’ve installed both the electric netting and step in electric posts with ribbon fencing. I like both.

Below you can see our goat and sheep electric fence that is netting. Further down on the left you can see we transitioned to three stands of electric with step-in posts. Read more about electric fencing setup here. We reinforced the netting with some step-in posts which was helpful to stabilize them.

Electric netting fence installed in backyard

Do you have any questions about the panels? Please leave me a comment and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible!

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Yield: 1 Portable Fence

Portable Fence Panels: Perfect as a Temporary Fence for Renters

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Active Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Difficulty: Intermediate
Estimated Cost: $25

Build a temporary fence if you’re renting a home or plan to move. It's much easier than you think. We will show you how easy it is to move the fence to a new location if you are relocating.

Materials

  • Welded wire fencing at 4′ height
  • T Posts 
  • Steel Fence T Post Clips
  • 5 Gallon Bucket

Tools

  • T Post Driver
  • Tiller

Instructions

  1. Plan to remove the fencing on a warm day.
  2. Remove all of your poles.
  3. Stack your panels in a convenient location for the moving truck.
  4. Use packing tape to wrap them together. 
  5. Use the 5 gallon bucket to hold the spikes for the move.
  6. Click here to learn how to install the fence panels.

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