fence posts, wood or concreat?

[knighty]

I've got a load of fencing to do

using google earth to measure, it's 170m (820ft) in an L shape (most of it a striaght line)

then a shorter 33m (110ft) stretch

Old fence is totally knackered

I found a guy who buys stuff from building sites, sold me 150ft of wood fence that had been round a hosing estate while it was built and he has more to come

so I need posts... I remmeber helping my dad as a kid, he's leave the posts soaking in a bucket of creosote for an age tp stop them rotting and I was planning to do the same

but looking at prices, it's not that much more for concreat posts

it'll be bloody hard work getting the concreat posts in position.... so is it worth the extra work? - 6ft fence, 8ft posts?)


I need to get a fence up so I can get some goats in before we're overun by brambles

[Stinsy]

I’ve done concrete posts and gravel boards with wooden panels before. Concrete parts are heavy as hell though and not really a one-man job to shift.

Any wood in contact with the ground is going to rot at some point.

Plastic panels are all the rage these days…

[Beau]

I've never worked with concrete posts so cant compare but have started treating my own post on the farm with creosote now we can buy it again. It is nasty stuff but IME it works very well at preserving post as any old telegraph pole will demonstrate. If you are soaking your own post get the wood as dry as you can first and then leave for an age as you say. It does not absorb the creo quickly especially the redwoods like larch and douglas fir. I am experimenting with less naturally rot resistant woods which are far more absorbent to see how well the hold up once treated but its early days on this one.

[Mart]

We've got concrete fences on one side (posts and panels), as seen in the first few posts on this thread:

https://camelot-forum.co.uk/phpBB3/view ... =15&t=3245

Fence is typically 6.5ft high, but steps due to slope of garden, so most posts are 7ft high, and about 9ft total length.

They were done by one guy, with me simply helping at times, mainly to hold them upright, whilst he adjusted position to ensure panels would fit. But he's an absolute powerhouse, and those posts are damn heavy. So really need two people.

He used a standard post hold tool, and about 1.5bags of postcrete per post. Then some concrete to top up each hole and level to ground (or just below).

Obviously the big win, is long term maintenance, or sheer lack of any.


But, counter argument, on the opposite side I have shorter wooden posts, fitted into Metposts. Those posts are fine (the bottom edge of the wood / top of the Metposts are clear of the ground) after ~30yrs. But they are in the sun/clear. Similar posts I put in, at the bottom of the garden, in the shade of a large Magnolia, and therefore damper, rotted a bit, and the Metposts rusted badly after only about 15yrs. So wood post, straight into concrete, with perhaps some thick bitumen coating at least on the bottom, would have probably been cheaper, and easier.

[Moxi]

If it’s goats you can forget standard fences, it would be quicker, easier and more effective to put in electric fence. Goats are fabulous and intelligent and great escapees fences with feather cladding will be butted off the horizontals in short order.

Are you buying goats or hiring in someone else’s?

You might also contemplate smaller stockades that you can move fortnightly as the goats work through the undergrowth.

Moxi

[spread-tee]

Definitely worth the effort to go with concrete posts, wood below ground no matter what you do to it will fail 10-12 years down the road, concrete should last 50 at least. If you can go for arris rails of some kind between the post it makes positioning of the posts much less critical. Depending on your ground might be worth hiring a powered auger to dig the holes.

Desp

[resybaby]

Concrete gets my vote too.
Last house with 100m garden had concrete down one side and wooden posts down the other. Both done by previous owners.
In 15 years i never had to touch the concrete side, but by the time we left that house more than half of the other side had been replaced.

Article on a documentsry i watched a week or so ago about the first 'london bridge', the one in the falling down nursery rhyme.
That was a wooden post bridge apparantly, and the wooden post stumps are still in situ in places.
Some expert or other explained that the original posts rotted (like all the wooden posts in my fence) at the high waterline only as that is where the post is under the most stress die to varying conditions.
The take away i heard was, keep a post permamently wet or permamently dry and it will last for ages - the trouble comes where the post experiences both. Hence why most break at the point of contact with the ground.

[AE-NMidlands]

I too would go for concrete straight off. Otherwise a few years down the line you will be buying "Concrete fence post repair spurs"

Screenshot 2024-11-29 at 09-27-36 Concrete Fence Post Repair Spur 4024.png (269.52 KiB) Viewed 826 times

and it would have been much easier to put concrete in first.
However I have to admit that cheapo concrete posts aren't indestructible, some of our 30-year old ones have started to spall as the reinforcing has rusted. They are still doing the job, though.

[richbee]

Definitely think concrete is worth it for the long term - don't know how much wind you get, but that length of fencing is a giant sail, waiting to get blown down with snapped wooden posts!

[Tinbum]

I too would go for concrete straight off. Otherwise a few years down the line you will be buying "Concrete fence post repair spurs"
Screenshot 2024-11-29 at 09-27-36 Concrete Fence Post Repair Spur 4024.png
and it would have been much easier to put concrete in first.
However I have to admit that cheapo concrete posts aren't indestructible, some of our 30-year old ones have started to spall as the reinforcing has rusted. They are still doing the job, though.

I'd agree. I always use concrete.

saying that I did about 500m of fencing here and used treated timber and it started falling down within 7 years. Timber is not what it used to be and treatment has little effect. Timber was ok many many years ago as was creosote and would last a long time. So called 'creosote' is not what it used to be even if you get the industrial stuff. The only exception is what they seem to be able to use for telegraph and electricity poles.