Fence Removal Cost Calculator: Cost Per Foot

With the defaults, removing 150 LF of wood fence up to 6 ft tall and hauling it away in one 50 CY load comes to $1,150, which is $7.67 per LF: $750 for the tear-out and $400 for disposal. Without the disposal load it is $750, or $5.00 per LF.

The material sets the rate. At 150 LF with one load, chain link and ornamental metal come to the same $1,150 as wood, because the public bids for all three were close to $5 per LF. Vinyl comes to $1,600 ($10.67 per LF) and masonry to $4,150 ($27.67 per LF). At the default prices masonry never costs less than vinyl, and vinyl never less than wood, chain link or ornamental metal, at any height or length.

Taller fence costs more to take down. The calculator adds 15% of the 6 ft price for each 2 ft above 6 ft, so 150 LF of 8 ft wood with one load is $1,263 ($8.42 per LF) and 10 ft is $1,375 ($9.17 per LF). That step comes from one of the two bidders in Tarrant County’s 2022 tab, whose wood prices were $4.25, $4.95 and $6.50 per LF at 6, 8 and 10 ft. The other bidder priced every height at $5.00. The step is a price you can change.

Length spreads the disposal load. With one load, 100 LF of wood is $900 ($9.00 per LF), 300 LF is $1,900 ($6.33 per LF) and 500 LF is $2,900 ($5.80 per LF). The calculator does not work out how many loads a fence fills, so add loads for a long or heavy fence. The $300 minimum is a floor that sets the price only when the job adds up to less: 30 LF of wood with no disposal adds up to $150, so the minimum sets the price at $300. At the default prices that happens for wood with no disposal below 60 LF.

Posts set in concrete are the slow part of tearing out a fence, and the public bids do not price them on their own. The calculator has no separate line for pulling footings or for gates. What the rates include depends on the source.

The vinyl rate comes from Pleasant Hill Recreation & Park District’s 2025 Hidden Creek Aqua Park Fence Improvements Project (bids opened March 11, 2025). Its first item was “Removal & disposal of existing white vinyl fencing (613' LF) and five (5) gates”, to include all concrete footings and miscellaneous hardware. That item’s price covers the gates, the footings and disposal. If you use the vinyl rate as it is, set disposal loads to 0 or you may pay for disposal twice.

The wood, chain link, ornamental metal and masonry rates come from Tarrant County, Texas’s Annual Contract for Fence Installation, Demolition, and Repairs (RFB 2022-217). Its demolition section is priced “per bid specifications”, and we did not open the specifications, so we do not know whether those prices include pulling footings or hauling the debris off. Ask your contractor what their price per foot covers.

Disposal is priced per 50 cubic yard load at $400, the price for “50 cy disposal of fence” in Gwinnett County, Georgia’s fence contract (BL076-21, renewal December 21, 2025 to December 20, 2026). That is one contractor’s renewal price. Set loads to 0 if the debris stays on site or you haul it yourself.

Vinyl has the widest spread. Pleasant Hill received two bids for its removal item: $4,950 and $23,500, which are $8.08 and $38.34 per LF of the 613 LF, with the five gates and the footings included. The calculator uses the low bid, rounded to $8. At the high bid, 150 LF with one load would be $6,151 instead of $1,600. That is one job with two bids, so treat the vinyl rate as a starting point.

Masonry rests on few bids. Tarrant’s two bidders priced 6 ft masonry fence (by column height) at $10.00 and $25.50 per LF and 8 ft at $10.00 and $35.50, each on a quantity of 1 LF. The calculator uses $25. At $10 per LF, 150 LF with one load would be $1,900 instead of $4,150.

Chain link has the most evidence. Tarrant’s 2022 bids were $5.00 and $3.95 per LF for 6 ft and 8 ft, and South Dakota DOT’s 2024 Bid Item Price Report lists Remove Chain Link Fence at $6.86 per foot as the average low bid and $9.41 as the average of the three lowest bids, over 4,887 ft on 6 contracts. A state DOT price is one state’s price for highway lettings. The calculator uses $5.00, the middle of 3.95, 5.00 and 6.86.

The disposal price is one contractor’s, from one county. Gwinnett’s same contract prices a 2-man crew for demolition labor at $115 per hour, which suits a job that is hard to price by the foot.

Most fence jobs that replace an old fence need a tear-out line. Run this calculator for the old fence, then add its total as an extra line in the fence calculator’s contractor bid mode, or use this calculator’s own bid mode for a removal-only job.

In bid mode the default job’s $1,150 becomes a customer price of $1,518 with 10% overhead and 20% profit. The removal and disposal prices come from public bids, which are contractors’ selling prices, so they already include overhead and profit. Replace them with your own costs in the pricing section before you add markup, or the markup counts them twice. There is no material tax on this job, because removal and disposal are services.