Carli Fence

Three generations of Carlis have been putting up fences out of the same family business since the Truman administration, and the thing customers keep writing about is what happens years after the crew leaves. One homeowner, writing in August 2025, said Carli had installed their fence about five years earlier, problems cropped up, and the company came straight over to fix them. Another, in July 2024, described frost heaves lifting posts three years post-install; he wrote that Tom spent the day at the property putting it right and told him at the end that he wanted him happy. That is the through-line across the 26 Google ratings, which average four stars: they come back. The pace is quick when they do come. A homeowner writing in July 2026 had an estimate within days and the whole job — old divider fence down one day, new six-foot vinyl up the next — done in two. A January 2023 reviewer named Tom, Ralph and Felipe as the crew that worked around a rocky yard to build a fence that would hold a dog in, at what they called a fair price. A May 2023 customer said Tom's quote came in about $800 under a competitor's. Two complaints are worth weighing. That same May 2023 customer knocked a star because the installers turned up completely unannounced, minutes before he was due to leave for the office — good work, no phone call. More seriously, an October 2024 one-star review came from a neighbor of a Carli customer, who wrote that the tall solid plastic fence erected next door does not meet the town's height and sidewalk-setback rules for residential fencing and blocks the view when backing out of a driveway. Nothing in what we can see resolves that dispute, so if your fence sits near a sidewalk or a driveway sightline, ask them directly who is pulling the permit and confirming the town's height rules before the posts go in. The company's own history says Ralph Carli, a Somerville firefighter, started it in 1950 with a 1948 Dodge pickup that it still keeps at the warehouse; its BBB file, accredited since March 2005 and graded A+, records the business start as 1952 and 74 years in business. It has been a Medford Chamber of Commerce member. Massachusetts does not require home improvement contractor registration for fencing-only work, which is why the directories show no licence for them. Carli is the straightforward call for a residential fence — wood, vinyl, chain link, ornamental or metal — from a shop that answers when something shifts three winters later. Get the town's setback and height requirements in writing with the quote, and ask them to call the day before the crew arrives.