One of the most popular fencing styles in Australia is the good old brush fence. Built from thousands of tightly packed twigs, these fences have become synonymous with suburban Australian streets.
We come across numerous customers asking us how they can utilise their brush fence as a place for their letterbox to be installed in.
Unfortunately the nature of a brush fence's construction presents a few challenges for securely installing a large box in it.
However, there a couple of ways to approach it, let's have a look.
Keep it simple
The easiest and most simple letterbox solution for a brush fence, is the Superior. These are lightweight and compact in design. They will come with a rear brace that can be attached to the back to help support the box from behind.
Normally with a wooden or metal fence installation, the rear brace will be fixed to the back of the fence via rivets or screws. With brush, there is no surface to adhere to, so the brace has to be simply attached to the box and tightly packed up against the back of the brush. The hole in the brush fence would also ideally be a nice tight fit for the letterbox so it can't fall out.
We would highly recommend talking to a brush fence specialist to get them to install it for you, to make sure they can use their expertise and there are no issues. They may also want to use the supporting bar, a metal bar that generally runs horizontally across the inside of the brush.
Superiors are very often purchased from us by brush fencing specialists.
Post mounted
To avoid issues where the brush isn't strong enough to support the weight of a heavy letterbox, you can use an extra support like a post that is either bolted to concrete or concreted into the ground behind the fence.
You can then have a cutout in the fence with the face of the letterbox sticking through the front. From our range, the Vandal Resist or Ultimo would be most ideal for this. For multi unit complexes with a brush fence, our Multibanks may also be suitable if installed on posts.
Custom faceplates, a word of warning...
Although they have a similar makeup to the Superior, our Custom Faceplates & letterboxes are built a bit differently in a way that makes them very unsuitable for brush fences.
We attach the faceplate to the box via very high bond construction tape. This is very durable and extremely hard to undo, but is still only designed to have the weight it's carrying also supported via attachment to a solid wall or fence.
The customised faceplates are heavier in weight, especially the stainless steel ones. Even if they are installed "properly" into the brush, there is a chance that weight will start to sag and you could se detachment of the faceplate and the box.
Our recommendation is do not order a Custom Faceplate for a brush fence.
Summary
So for peace of mind, stick with a Superior. We have a large range of colour choices to match almost any home and several numbering styles too.
For guides on other fence types, see below...