Joe,
The last storm we had
brought a tree down in my back yard. It
came down across my back fence and seems to have snapped two posts at or below
ground level. What would be the cheapest
way to repair this without having to take the fence all apart and replace
it? Thank you for your help,
Pete
Thanks for the question
Pete,
It sucks to lose a tree to
a wind storm, but its sucks worse when the falling tree causes property damage
of any kind. I know, I had one come down
on my garage several years ago.
Well, you have a couple of
options: the easiest is to go to the
hardware store and purchase what is known as a post mender. This is a steel u-shaped apparatus that,
driven into the ground beside a broken post with a sledge hammer acts as a kind
of splint for the fence post. This repair is permanent but may not hold up to a
lot of future abuse.
A better repair, slightly
more labour intensive though, would be to “sister” the broken post with a new
post. This will require you to dig down
beside the broken one about three feet or so and have access to the bottom of
it. Once down there, clean off the post
and get a new post the same size, drill ½ inch holes through it every foot or
so, and drop it in the hole. Using some
6 inch x 3/8” lag screws, screw the new
post to the old one every foot or so all the way up. Back fill your hole and
you should be good now for the life of your fence. Be sure you cap the new post to protect it
from rot.
Now you need to keep in
mind that if the posts are breaking off below ground level, this probably is an
indication of the woods deterioration from age and moisture. You’ll want to properly assess the condition
of all the fences component parts and determine a reasonable lifespan for the
entire assembly before it becomes a safety hazard.
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