Results: renewing fence post for third time

[Peter Bull]

A fence post has snapped again and needs renewing for the 3dr time.

>I remember last time, I put soooo many bags of ready mix into the >hole. This time I recock I'll need a readymix truck. The post HAS >to go in the same place. Is there anything I can do other than >drilling out the old concrete and putting more in?

I did the post yesterday using the Metpost repair spur kindly suggested by Clive Summerfield. I bought a new post, but thought afterwards that I could have turned the old post upside down and used that, sawing off the top. The spike wend down the edge of the old post in the concrete, but it was a n ightmare to get it vertical.... one tap down with the sledgehammer then three on the sides to get it vertical, one tap down..... The inside of the spike that receives the post has 'fins' that bite into the post to hold it steady, plus the inside is bigger that the post it takes. I therefore found it impossible to locate the new post in exactly the same place as the old one, and had to do a lot of fixing to get the fence panels attached to the new post. I noticed later that my local garden centre sells 'Quikposts' that have a smaller socket for the post, and you tighten

*bolts* to hold the spike to the post.

Comments anyone?

[BigWallop]

Always best to paint the bottoms of wooden posts with a thick bitumen paint, on top the preserver paint, before burying them in the ground or in MetPost sockets. That way they last for years and years with only a top up of preserver every so often.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Some ~17 years ago, I built a feather boarded arris rail fence which is still standing fine. I used Fensock post holders which had a nut and bolt clamp to hold the post, so you could position it vertical and then tighten the clamp. The sockets hold the post bases slightly off the ground. Don't know if they still exist as a product though. I found you needed to buy 10-20% more post sockets than you needed as every now and then one would hit a lump of concrete or similar and end up with U-shaped spike which was no good.

Incidently, I could do with some 4" metaposts for a (different) fence which has lost a couple of posts concreted into the ground. When I looked around, the type you hammer into an existing hole only seemed to come for 3" posts. Anyone seen 4" ones?

[Bob]

I found that Metposts into the old stumps didn't hold the post solidly. They were also nigh on impossible to get in vertical, as you mention..

After losing fence panels for a third time, I bit the bullet and went for a proper repair. I used 4ft concrete posts sunk 2ft into the ground next to each wooden post. This did mean digging out the old concrete from around the wooden posts, and was a lot of hard work, but the fence hasn't budged an inch since.

Mal