Smart tips for fenceposts....

The fence is falling down - and the neighbour has been very good about not complaining, so I promised I would replace it this spring.

I've decided to make this one easy to repair so I will be setting 2"x 1/4" angle iron into concrete. Nominally 2' above ground and 2' below. Local forge can supply, cut and drill so that saves some effort.

To this I will bolt 3" 6' wooden fence posts, clear of the ground - then fit

6' panels between. Should beat the hell out of metposts for longevity and strength. Not my idea - a carpenter friend did this and says it works. also neater than concrete stubs, especially of you route a rebate into the fence post for the iron.

Anyway, the neighbour has a dog so this needs to be a fairly quick operation

- couple of days max.

To save save work I am going to offset the new fence by half a panel to the old (which has a half panel anyway) - so I will not be fighting old lumps of concrete digging the post holes.

The hard bit as I see will be setting and holding the iron while the concrete sets. I have 2 theories - but I wondered if anyone had better ideas?

1) Screw disposable wooden battens between the irons to maintain 6'3" spacing and then use short diagonals onto pegs in the ground to hold the iron "floating" in the correct place and vertical. Sounds fiddly.

2) add another foot to the iron, add a foot of 20mm shingle to the botton of the post hole and hammer the iron in and after tweaking, reply on that to hold while the concrete sets.

I will probably be lazy and hire a hole auger as I'll be doing a whole run on one go. Be using a string concrete (C20 or better), not "postcrete" as these are designed to not ever come out.

Clever time saving cool ideas welcome :)

Also - what panels? The standard garden centre woven panels piss me off as they are so weak. OTOH anything decent seems to cost an absolute arm and leg. 4' willow with a 2' trellis on top would look nice, but again, seems expensive.

Cheers,

Tim

Reply to
Tim Watts
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Consider getting your local forge to put the finished items in with their next batch of hot dip galvanising. I did this with some brackets for high level planters and the cost was low - about £20 for 10 chunky brackets and they are as bright and shiny as the day they went up - 3 or so years ago. Go to a galvaniser direct and you will possibly be hit by a minimum order charge - £60 plus vat in my case, but this will get shared across the batch of work. I had to wait for about 3 weeks until other jobs collected at the steel fabricators but it was well worth it.

Reply to
Bob Minchin

Why not just use concrete posts?

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

In message , Tim Watts writes

I doubt you need 2' above ground unless your posts are badly knotted. 3" posts are a bit on the light side. Don't rely on the *treated wood* claim but stand the soil contact area in a suitable fungicide for as long as is practical.

I don't know Sussex soils but 18" would be adequate here. This leaves 6" of angle iron to engage the subsoil while you pour the concrete. Buried flints might make accurate positioning tricky and you are very reliant on exact spacing for bought in panels.

You still need to get loose soil out of the augered hole as those things don't totally self clear. *Shovel holer* or similar.

Pass:-)

Reply to
Tim Lamb

On Wednesday 27 February 2013 10:38 Tim+ wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Ugly and take up another 3-4" of space :)

The iron will not cost any more. I realise concrete posts are a bit easier to "wedge" while setting...

Reply to
Tim Watts

On Wednesday 27 February 2013 11:24 Tim Lamb wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Hi Tim,

OK - appreciated. I was being "on the safe side" with that. Plus it gives me a bit more iron to put a spirit level to when setting. In one area, these irons might end up providing lateral support to a couple deep of railway sleepers as I build the ground height up a bit buy taking some soil from the high side of the garden (I'm on a big slope - about 1.5m over the diagonal of my land. I'd like to lose a foot at one and and stick it on the other.)

We have about 18-24" soil on top of solid clay that gets really solid about

3' down. Not many rocks (except for old builders rubble).

Appreciated - I do have a scissor type hole shovel to clear the bottom with.

Reply to
Tim Watts

On Wednesday 27 February 2013 10:26 Bob Minchin wrote in uk.d-i-y:

I like that idea :)

It would be better than painting them. That plus being 1/4" thick should last forever.

Reply to
Tim Watts

Feather edge board and arris rails are much stronger and adjustable if the posts are not positioned in exactly the correct position.

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike

Tim,

If you go the arris rail way, I have a wacking great chain mortiser that you are welcome to use to mortice your posts if you like

AWEM

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

Do bear in mind that a nominal 6' (1.8m) wide panel will (a) +/- up to

15mm and (b) won't always be square.
Reply to
The Medway Handyman

On Wednesday 27 February 2013 17:11 The Medway Handyman wrote in uk.d-i-y:

I'd better add a cm to each spacing then. Thanks for that :)

Reply to
Tim Watts

I just made my own panels. But my fence is on a slope so there was nothing available to buy.

BTW I bumped into Paul my last next door neighbour the other day. He is out of work and he could come and give you a hand if you want. Remember the fence he built?

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Reply to
ARW

Classy work!

Reply to
Bob Minchin

My fence at the other side of his "driveway" only took the same man hours to install. When you stand on the street and look down the fence the first 3 panels are perfectly in line both horizontally and vertically.

Reply to
ARW

Please note the + and the - signs, if you allow another centimetre over what you intend allowing and get some panels that are 15mm shy, plus the 10mm extra leaves a 25mm gap at the end of each panel.

FWIW, there's a reason why people don't do fences like this and I fear you will soon find out what it is....i'm on my way out now but I'll check back tomorrow to see if you've worked out the major pitfall

Reply to
Phil L

On Wednesday 27 February 2013 20:13 Phil L wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Thank you - I know what +/- errors mean.

It's easier to add a bit of filler strip than it is to slim down a premade panel... And for the case where I added 10mm and the error is +15mm - well, TMH was not being exact and a few mm is within the capacity of posts to bend a little :)

Reply to
Tim Watts

The only reliable way IMO is to erect 1st post using postcrete, drink tea while it sets, attach next panel & erect 2nd post flush with that, etc, etc.

Entirely possible to have 1 panel on the - & the next on the +.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

A few years ago an ebayer was selling very large amounts of oak (sawmill re ject grade) for £200. That would make a nice long lived fence.

I've no idea what it'd cost you to make the angle iron full height and skip the wood uprights.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

Eh?

They're similar cross section to 3" timber and have handy channels on two opposite faces for easy panel fitting. It's a no-brainer.

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

On Thursday 28 February 2013 11:55 Man at B&Q wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Oh - you are talking about full concrete posts. I was thinking the PP meant the concrete stub posts that wooden posts are bolted to:

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Well - it's an idea... Drop panel in, lift panel out for replacement. Would not look ugly if they had a coat of paint in dark brown or green. Thank you :) Sounds like it would be a lot easier. I thought these were only for concrete panels - I had not considered wood panels into concrete posts.

Could use a couple of 6' battens as spacing guides and a couple of stays for temporary bracing while postfix sets (no real need for mental strength concrete).

Reply to
Tim Watts

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