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Unilock Fence Installation: The Orange County Owner’s Guide
Unilock fence installation in Orange County typically runs $3,500 – $9,000, and the price you land on depends on the post type, the wall block system you’ve chosen, and how much site prep your yard needs before the first course goes down. We carry a full line of Unilock wall and fence system components on our trucks, and we can usually diagnose a failing fence or a collapsed section in a single visit. Most owners discover the problem the morning after a heavy rain, or when the gate starts dragging across the pavers and won’t latch anymore.
Trevor Nash has walked enough Orange County backyards to know what happens when fence installations skip a step. You get a post that leans two degrees the first year, a gate that binds every November when the ground shifts, or a base that was never tamped correctly so the whole section settles like a ship in slow water. The good news: a Unilock fence can be pulled apart, corrected, and rebuilt section by section, so you rarely need to tear out the whole run. Give you the number first, then pick up the tool.
Which Unilock Models This Applies To
Unilock’s fence and screening wall systems fall into a few recognizable families, and each one uses a slightly different post configuration. The Estate Wall and Brussels Dimensional system both use a hollow-core post that gets reinforced with rebar and filled with concrete, which is the only way those posts survive the freeze-thaw cycles we get in the inland canyons and the constant coastal moisture closer to Huntington Beach. The Rivercrest Wall system is a different animal entirely: those posts are solid units and the wall blocks slide into a vertical channel, so there’s no mortar and no adhesive. Knowing which generation of Rivercrest you have matters, because the channel dimensions changed slightly between the original and the Rivercrest 2.0 release, and mixing them creates a fence that never fully locks together.
We identify the exact part by looking at the paver stamp on the bottom of any block we pull. Unilock stamps go back decades, and they tell us which production run you have. If you’ve lost the original paperwork, we can match the texture and color from a single block. The honest conversation we have with every Orange County homeowner is whether to replace with OEM Unilock units or a quality aftermarket equivalent. For fences that are still in production, we recommend staying OEM, because color fade and dimensional drift between manufacturers will show within three years when Southern California UV exposure hits the replacement blocks. For discontinued colors, we’ll show you the three closest matches and let you decide before we order anything.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your Unilock Fence Installation Is Failing
- The gate post has started to lean or rotate. This almost always means the post was installed without a deep enough footer or skipped the rebar and concrete fill. In Orange County’s clay-heavy soils, a shallow post moves every time the ground gets wet and dries again.
- Blocks are shifting out of vertical alignment, especially near the bottom course. The base was level when it went in, but the substrate wasn’t compacted or the drainage behind the fence wasn’t handled. Water builds up, the base settles, and the wall starts walking.
- You can see gaps opening between the blocks and the post channels. This is a classic sign of a mixed-generation Rivercrest install, or blocks that were forced into place with a mallet instead of sliding clean. Once the channel is stressed, the friction fit never comes back right.
- Efflorescence (white chalky powder) is spreading across the face of the fence. Some is normal in year one as the block cures, especially near the coast. But when it reappears every spring, it’s a sign water is being pulled through the wall, which means the drainage path behind the fence was never built correctly.
- The gate won’t latch without lifting it or kicking the bottom rail. One sagging post changes the hinge geometry. In Orange County, this shows up most often in August when the wood framing inside a post swells, or after a Santa Ana wind event that pushed the gate repeatedly against the catch.
See the difference
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AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
In Orange County, a simple post replacement with rebar and concrete fill runs toward the lower end of that $3,500 – $9,000 range: you’re looking at roughly $750 – $1,200 per post depending on footer depth and how much block has to come apart to get to it. A full 40-foot fence section rebuild, which includes tearing down to the base, regrading and compacting, installing new drainage fabric and gravel, and rebuilding with fresh blocks, lands between $5,000 and $9,000. The variables are real: access to the yard, whether the old base can be reused, how many post footers need to be dug by hand versus machine, and what the current Unilock color is selling for per pallet.
Every quote we give is a written number before any work starts. It includes the blocks, the footer material, the concrete fill, the drainage, the labor, and the haul-away. It also includes our 365-Day Done Right Promise in writing: if something we installed fails inside a year, we come back and make it right at no charge. No service call, no re-inspection fee. You’ll know exactly what you’re paying and exactly what happens if the fence doesn’t hold.
DIY or Call Us?
There are things worth checking yourself before you pick up the phone. Walk the fence line and mark every post that isn’t plumb, check the gate swing and the latch alignment, and look for standing water along the base after a rain. That gives us a head start and helps you describe the problem on the call. What we’d ask you not to do is pull the fence apart yourself. A partially dismantled Unilock wall is a tip hazard, and if a post is concrete-filled and leaning, that’s several hundred pounds of mass that can come down on the wrong side of a pry bar. We’ve seen a fence section nearly take out a gas meter in Santa Ana when someone tried to save a few hundred bucks on a Saturday.
If you’re not sure whether the fence needs a repair or a full section rebuild, call (424) 541-1701 and describe what you’re seeing. We’ll tell you honestly what we think it is, and we’ll schedule a visit if it warrants one. The estimate is free, and the number we give you is the number on the invoice.
FAQs
A properly installed Unilock fence with concrete-filled posts and correct drainage lasts 25 to 40 years in Southern California; the block itself doesn’t wear out so much as the base and post footings eventually shift. Coastal salt air and inland UV exposure mainly affect surface color, not structural integrity. If your fence is failing before the 15-year mark, it’s almost always an installation issue, not a material issue. Call (424) 541-1701 and we’ll tell you which one you’re dealing with.
Yes, in most cases a leaning post can be dug out, re-set with a proper footer, and reinforced with rebar and concrete fill without replacing the surrounding wall blocks, as long as the post itself isn’t cracked. If the post block is fractured, which we see more often in Orange County when a fence was hit by a car or a tree limb, it needs to come out and be replaced. We’ll give you a straight answer once we see it.
A single post replacement typically takes one full day from demolition to concrete fill, with another day of curing before we tension the gate or put the cap blocks back on. A full fence section rebuild runs three to five working days depending on length and access. We’ll give you a written timeline with the estimate, and we show up in the window we gave you.
We carry the most common Unilock post blocks, base units, cap pieces, rebar, and drainage fabric on our trucks, so a single-post repair can usually be completed same-day in Orange County. For less common colors or discontinued lines, we order from Unilock’s regional distribution and typically have the blocks in hand within a week. We’ll tell you before we schedule the work whether anything needs to be ordered.
If you’ve got a Unilock fence that’s leaning, separating, or just not holding the gate anymore, call (424) 541-1701 to schedule a free estimate. We’ll walk the fence with you, show you exactly what’s failing, and hand you a written price before any work starts. No pressure, no vague ballpark, no change orders at the door.
Written by Trevor Nash, Owner, Penhallow Remodeling Orange County at Penhallow Remodeling Orange County, serving Orange County and nearby areas.
