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So after storm Dudley and Eunice earlier this year, I have had the pleasure of replacing 13 Wooden fence posts, so I thought great opportunity to provide a guide.
Some of the post where rotten and snapped at the base whilst others where left in one piece but the foundations required securing or replacing.
So I ordered 13 off – 100mm x 100mm x 2.4m long Square posts from Wickes.
I measured the Fence height and painted the fence posts (bitumen paint) so that 2-4″ of the painted surface remained above ground level whilst also ensuring that at least 6″ would be covered by the new Post concrete underground etc.
So for the fence posts that did not break, I created a block that bolted/screwed to the post and then placed a brick either side of the post and inserted a car scissor jack under the block (resting on a wooden support) and proceeded to wind the jack and start to lift the post from the ground.
(Note: Fence post was separated from horizontal support bar (batten) using wooden wedge)
Once the scissor jack reached its maximum height, the jack was retracted and more bricks was then placed under the jack to increase lifting height to gentle extract the concreted post from the ground.
Once post was removed, the hole was tidied and new painted post was placed in existing hole and leveled with crow bar and bricks inserted into hole for stability.
Hole was then half filled with water and PostCrete added to 2″ below ground level and I ensured Postcrete was shaped so that it allowed water to drain away from post.
Couple of Pictures below showing different new posts in ground and soil leveled etc.
In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).
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To remove the fence post and concrete base where the actual fence post had rotted and broken, I tried the following options, depending on how rotten the remaining posts wood in concrete was.
As below, using the scissor jack, I attached a Ring eye plate to the top of the post stump and lifted concrete base from the ground using strong nylon rope.
If this failed, and it often did, then I resorted to digging out one side of the concrete post to full depth of concrete and about 150mm in width so that I can then lever behind concrete base with my 5ft crow bar and gentle wiggle out concrete post which was then lifted out.
After a few posts removed in this manner, I got it to a fine art in that very little extra soil was removed and this saved on extra (unnecessary) PostCrete being used etc.
Concrete base with rotten post replacement used approximately 2 x (20Kg) bags of PostCrete per post.
Note: I did find, wetting the mud/clay around the concrete base before I tried to move it did help.
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In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).
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Well done UKSentinel, I would not have a clue how to do any of this. I doff my hat to you
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Thank you,it was one of those jobs that I am glad I did, but no plan to repeat anytime soon
Good neighbor bonding experience it was
In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).
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Had a play with a Concrete Breaker/Demolition Jack Hammer whilst I was on the above job. so thought a good idea to share some pictures to show how well this worked at breaking out concrete pieces and keeping the shape of the hole, but it is heavy work.
Only point to add is, had fun when chisels drifted towards old wooden post, a real pain to get out, luckily I have the Einhell Demolition Hammer which comes with two chisels – so used the second chisel to remove the stuck chisel
In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).
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So I had a few old Wooden fence posts left over from my fence post replacement escapade (above) and decided no point wasting fairly good timber and re-used the old fence posts to make a simple Raised Bed Planter.
I also painted the Raised Bed Planter with some old decking (non VOC) paint I had left over from last year .
Raised Bed Planter:
In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).
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