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Iron is the most expensive fence on this site and the one that most changes how a house reads from the street. This calculator prices the real options — powder-coated steel through to hand-forged — and is honest about what salt air does to all of them.
Published figures for this market put wrought iron at $52 to $105 per linear foot installed, the widest band of any material here, because 'wrought iron' covers everything from welded powder-coated steel to genuinely forged work. On Coronado there is a second variable that matters as much as the design: whether the steel was hot-dip galvanised before it was coated. That single decision is most of the difference between a fence you touch up occasionally and one that is rusting through at the base in five years.
Powder-coated welded steel is the practical version and what most modern 'iron' fencing actually is. Cast-iron components add decorative elements. Traditional wrought iron is forged, and it is priced accordingly.
Scrollwork, finials, collars and cast panels are labour, not material. A plain picket run and a scroll-panel run in the same steel can be double one another.
Hot-dip galvanising before powder coating is the single biggest thing you can do for coastal service life. It costs meaningfully more and it is worth more than any other upgrade on this page.
Adds about 28% per foot from 6 to 8 feet, and iron is heavy — taller panels mean bigger footings and more of them.
Iron gates are the heaviest gates of any material, which means the hinge post is doing real work. A sagging iron gate is almost always a hinge-post problem, and it is expensive to fix after the fact.
Iron and salt are a maintenance relationship rather than a one-off purchase. Budget for inspection and touch-up on a cycle, and put the money into the coating system up front rather than the repair later.
This calculator works from the 2026 cost figures published for Coronado and coastal San Diego. What it cannot see is where your property line actually runs, what is under your soil, whether the old posts are set in concrete, or how the neighbour feels about the fence you are both going to look at. We will come out, measure the run and give you a written scope with no pressure attached.
Book a free site visitPublished figures for this market put wrought iron at $52 to $105 per linear foot installed. By project type: powder-coated steel in an iron style runs $4,500 to $11,000, cast-iron component fencing $6,000 to $14,000, traditional custom wrought iron $8,000 to $20,000 or more, and decorative scroll-panel fencing $7,500 to $18,000. Removing an existing fence adds $1,200 to $3,500.
Usually not, and that is fine. True wrought iron is forged and is rare and expensive. What most companies sell as wrought iron is welded steel, powder-coated, in a traditional style — it looks the part, costs a fraction, and with a good coating system lasts well. Genuinely forged work is worth paying for when the design is the point; it is not worth paying for as a default.
Hot-dip galvanise before powder coating. That is the answer, and everything else is secondary. Galvanising puts a zinc layer between the steel and the air that keeps protecting even where the coating gets chipped. After that: rinse it, touch up chips as they appear rather than annually, and pay attention to the bottom few inches of every post, because that is where it starts and nobody looks there.
Yes, at standard picket spacing — iron easily meets the 1.75-inch gap rule and the 60-inch height. The thing to check is the design: decorative scroll panels and cast elements can create footholds in the 45-to-60-inch zone the code cares about, which turns an ornamental fence into a ladder. Have the specific panel design checked against the code before it is fabricated, not after.
The California Building Code exempts fences under 7 feet from a building permit; at 7 feet or more you need one. Coronado zoning allows up to 8 feet in a required side or rear yard and 4 feet in a required front yard, with exceptions for side-line returns and certain named streets. Because iron is so often used at the front of a property, that 4-foot front-yard limit is the rule that catches people here.
Longer than any other material on this site. Design and shop drawings take one to three weeks, fabrication three to six, galvanising and coating another one to two, and installation a few days. Plan on two to three months for genuinely custom work. Powder-coated steel in a stock style is much faster because the panels are already made.
Planning the whole project? Start at the Coronado fence calculator hub, or read more about our Wrought Iron Fence Installation service.