Efficiency and Versatility with Pro-Strain Feb 2025
Investing in steel fencing.
'Steel fencing had been slow to get off the ground here in west Cornwall. Over the last 5 years I have only installed the occasional fence where the client has wanted to look at longer life options and the general response is that timber has the preferred aesthetic. However the numbers, or more importantly the pounds, win in favour of steel.
I recently did the calculations with a customer and costed Tornado Clipex on his project. We did the same for timber and the cost left Clipex 25% more expensive for the initial installation. I highlighted that the Clipex should last 25 years and as timber is lasting around 8 years on average, the timber option could cost him two and a half times the cost of Clipex over the same 25 year period, not including earlier replacements, inflation and 3 times the amount of disruption from contractors working the fence line.
Take into account a lot of projects receive grant funding which is only available once, steel is the logical and cost-effective way to spend the capital.
Benefits of steel
As a contractor I have found many benefits to steel fencing.
The biggest one is transport, on a small project I can load the knocker onto the trailer leaving space for a few stainers and struts underneath, while a 250m roll of stock net and some intermediates can be put in the pick-up. Whereas with timber I need a separate trip for materials when starting a new project.
Another benefit of Clipex is in the name. The lack of need for a stapler is a real positive as it’s another tool that doesn’t need to be carried, serviced, or charged and I don’t need to keep tabs on a stock of staples.
When I’m unable to get the machine to a post position Clipex is hand driven with greater ease.
Tornado has done a great job with their Pro-Strain system. When asked during development what I would like to see from the product, I mentioned versatility. Other products have a set method of installation which doesn’t suit all situations. And I love that it can be a standard or box strainer using the same components.
In west Cornwall we fence over or through a lot of granite, serpentine and blue Elvin ridden ground, because of this we don’t add the heel plate to our strainers unless it’s soft ground. With previous products we were occasionally having to cut the heel plate off or most often it would cause the location hole for the strut to be twisted and another hole needs to be drilled. With Pro-Strain, we get to spec the strainers as we need them, as they get driven in based on feel / feedback from the rock spike. This is usually just the breast plate, however we have driven in strainers that need both plates and sometimes even none.
My machine doesn’t drive to ground level so I haven’t used the strut peg with the Pro-Strain system yet, in fact I do it the traditional way in that I dig a narrow channel and use the heel plate as a stob plate and use the collar to apply the pressure. This has been great in areas where the terrain is so steep that I need to cut the struts shorter to achieve the required angle. It also makes it significantly cheaper than the competitor’s system.'
Tommy Tresidder - Tresidder Fencing