Chain link is the fence people choose when the job is about containment, boundary and budget rather than privacy. It keeps a dog in, keeps a pool enclosure to code, marks a property line without blocking the breeze, and secures a yard full of equipment or a commercial lot. In Chalmette it also has a practical advantage that wood doesn't: a chain link fence doesn't rot, doesn't hold moisture against the ground, and when a storm pushes water through a yard, the mesh lets it pass instead of acting like a dam and tearing the whole run out of the earth.
The fence lives or dies on the post holes. Line posts and terminal posts (ends, corners and gate posts) get dug, set plumb and concreted, with terminal posts dug deeper and wider because they carry all the tension in the fabric. Soil here is soft silt and clay with a water table that's never far down, so a hole often starts filling with water before the concrete goes in. That changes how the work is done — holes dug a bit deeper and belled at the bottom, concrete mixed stiffer, posts braced and left alone to cure before anyone pulls wire against them. Once the concrete has set, the top rail goes in through the line post caps, the chain link fabric is unrolled along the run, and a tension bar is woven through the end and bolted to the terminal post with tension bands. Then the fabric is stretched — properly stretched, with a come-along, not pulled by hand — and tied off to the rail and line posts. A bottom tension wire or bottom rail is what stops a dog from pushing underneath, and on sandy or recently graded lots it's worth having.
Gates are where most of the difference in quality shows up. A walk gate is straightforward. A double drive gate spanning a driveway puts serious leverage on its hinge post, and if that post isn't oversized and set deep, the gate will start dragging within a season. Cantilever and rolling gates for commercial yards are a different build again, with a track, rollers and a counterbalance length behind the opening. Ask how the gate posts will be set and whether the gate frame is welded or fitted with corner elbows, because that's what decides whether it still swings true in a few years.
Height is the obvious one — four foot for a residential yard, six for security, taller for ball fields and commercial. Beyond that, the specification matters more than most people expect. Fabric comes in different gauges; lighter wire costs less and dents more easily. Mesh size matters if you're containing a small dog or meeting pool barrier requirements. Galvanized is the standard finish, and near the river and the marsh the quality of that galvanizing is what determines how long before you see rust bleeding at the ties and the bottom selvage. Vinyl-coated fabric over galvanized core, usually black or green, costs more up front, looks considerably better against a house, and adds a layer between the steel and the salt air. Then there's the site: a clear, flat back yard goes fast, while a run along an old fence line full of roots, a tight side yard with no machine access, or a property that needs demolition and haul-off of a storm-damaged fence first will all add hours.
Have your property line settled before anyone digs — a survey or at least agreement with the neighbour, because moving a concreted fence is a demolition job. Check whether your subdivision or the parish has requirements on height or setback, and have utilities located before the holes go in. Ask specifically about post depth, post gauge, how the fabric will be tensioned, and whether the quote includes removing the old fence.
Done badly, the symptoms are predictable: fabric that sags and ripples because it was never stretched, line posts that lean because the holes were too shallow for this ground, a bottom edge with a gap the dog found in a week, and rusted-through ties at eye level. Across Chalmette, Arabi, Meraux and over the river in Gretna, those are the fences getting replaced early — not because chain link doesn't last, but because the install didn't respect the soil it was set in.