Fencing in Harvest

A just-built Harvest lot is engineered ground: swales cut along the property lines to move stormwater, fill dirt still settling, topsoil thin over compacted clay. Two fence mistakes follow from ignoring that. First, posts set in a drainage swale sit in running water every storm — the fastest rot schedule available. Second, a solid fence built tight to grade across a swale becomes a dam, and now your backyard holds the neighborhood's runoff. We read the lot's drainage before we stake the line: sometimes the fence steps up an inch or two over the swale, sometimes the line shifts a foot, and sometimes the right answer is picket-style over solid for one stretch. Small adjustments, dry backyard.

Harvest's big communities each carry their own fence rules — heights, materials, and approval steps that read a lot like Madison's. Same playbook applies: covenant first, drawings prepared, approval before dig day. Where Harvest differs is timing — whole phases close within months of each other, so the architectural committees see waves of identical requests. A submittal that matches what they've already approved sails; we keep track of what each community has been passing.

One honest wrinkle with fencing new fill: the ground keeps moving for a couple of seasons. A gate that swung perfectly in March can kiss the ground by October — not a build defect, just physics settling in. Our gates carry adjustable hardware for exactly this, and minor post-settling tune-ups in the first year are part of how we quote Harvest work. If you've inherited a fence that settled badly under a previous owner, the repair visit sorts what needs re-setting from what needs replacing.