My parents and I put up a fence around our property using a 6" or so diameter round treated wood fence post, placed into a hole about 2’ deep. and filled in with concrete. These were installed back around 1965-1966, but now some of them have rotted and broken off at ground level.
I have about a dozen or so I would like to install a new fence post into. The new post doesn’t have to be identical to the original - it can be a metal pole - and it doesn’t have to be super strong.
Frankly, I am looking for an easy repair. If I can help it, I’d rather not have to dig the old concrete base out of the ground, or have to break down the old wood still embedded in the concrete to install an identical pole.
I’m thinking that a metal pole driven down into the wood left in the concrete may have enough hold in the remaining wood to wedge into place and hold up a token amount of wire fence or wooden planks. If there is enough decent wood down in the hole, maybe forcing a metal or repair post into it will hold up for a few years.
Anyone here familiar with something like this or done a fairly easy fix on a similar setup? Suggestions?
If you really don’t want to dig out the old concrete, which is understandable, I can see trying to set a new metal pole in the wood still in the ground, but I’d be concerned with that wood being all rotten or rotting out so soon it’s not worth it.
I’m thinking:
1)Cut the fence post off and take a look at what you have to work with. Is the wood solid? If it is, Then you could probably find some kind of way to mount a new pole to it in whatever way suits you (I’m thinking a smaller one, screwed to it or drilled down so it’s stable). Then a few coats of some type of paint over the old wood to prevent rot as much as possible.
If the wood is really rotted out, I’d pick out all the wood. Use whatever you can to get it all out. Drills, sawzalls, let gas soak into it and toss in a match so it can smolder for a few hours, anything. Then you can put a 4x4 in there and pour new concrete around it. I’m thinking that’s your best bet, if you don’t want to dig it out.
2)I’m not sure this is better than digging it out, but another option is to set two new poles a few feet to either side of the old one, run boards from one new pole to the other new pole (spanning the failing section), then screw the old fence to the boards. Now the old post is doing nothing and you can remove it.
Of course, without pictures (or even knowing what type of fence this is, where a 6" wood post can be replaced with a metal pole) it’s hard to know if any of this works, so pictures might be helpful if these suggestions are totally unworkable.
They rot away from the bottom up, as the water sits there… there is no wood inside the concrete .Its just soil and muck now.
You want to know how deep the hole is. So you can buy the correct height of pole.
So wash or dig out the muck from one hole to see what they did.
When you install a new pole, set it in place with quickset concrete. Thats the quick and easy way to get the new pole stuck in place. It repairs any fault with existing concrete as a bonus and you didnt have to dig the old concrete out.
I’ve just been putting up a new fence, and yeah, dealing with the old stumps and lumps is a major hassle. Unless you move the locations of the posts there’s no way around it - you’re going to have to dig out those old lumps of concrete. A pickaxe and hard hat are handy here. Don’t even think about trying to drive a metal repair spike into the old stump, it ain’t gonna work.
Wooden fence posts mostly rot at the soil line, and you may find that the stump underground is fairly well preserved. You can buy plastic heatshrink sleeves for the bottom of the posts to keep the rot at bay; alternatively, paint with bitumen or similar.
I’ve gone for the concrete repair spur approach. These are concrete posts about a yard long that have a couple of bolt holes in the top half. They’re sunk into the ground and set in concrete so that about 18" shows, then the wooden post is bolted to this. When the wooden post needs replacing you can just bolt on a new one without having to go through the faff of digging the whole lot up again.
Alternatively, you could use proper concrete posts. They last for decades, but they are very, very ugly.
It may depend whether the whole post is rotten or not. If the post has been set in concrete and the concrete goes under the end of the post - sealing the end - it will indeed be total mush in the hole. However the right way to set a post in concrete is to throw some gravel into the hole, set the post onto it, and then fill with concrete. A technique that leaves the end of the post in the ground able to drain. Often these won’t rot out except at the surface line. So there is chance that the wood in the concrete is good below a certain level. So given the OP built the fence - albeit 50 years ago - he might remember.
If the wooden post is mush, removing the residue and concreting a galvanised steel post base into the 6" hole may be a good bet. You would only need to remove enough wood to get a reasonable amount of concrete around the base. You would not need to get the full 2’ out. Even if the wood is in good condition, this may be a viable approach.
I redid my fence posts several years ago, I drilled a hole into the wood and threaded in a large bolt. I used the bold the pry up on the old posts. I was lucky as the wood was rotten and had shrunk. They all just popped out cleanly with little effort.
I msuggest you search on google or whatever, for “stiffen rotted wood.” I found various pour-in products there, which can be used to stiffen the existing rotted wood in the holes in the concrete, which you can then drill into with your new post support.
Could you link to some (or one)? Just quickly looking, I’m finding lots of bondo type epoxy products for repairing surface damage and some lacquers that will soak in a bit and harden everything. But I’m not seeing anything designed to, essentially, petrify a tree stump. If the OP were to use a product you’re suggesting, it would not only need to be able to soak down quite deep (1-2 feet), it would need to harden everything up enough (which means it would take quite a while to cure, if ever) to be drilled and take, I suppose at that point, lag bolts, but I’m not sure.
I like the “quick-and-easy” plan that drops new fence posts a foot or so from the old rotten ones … just nail the fencing to the new posts and you’re good to go … the old fence posts are fine from the ground up so just leave them in place … it will look like an amateurish job, but it will work …
If you can get the wood out of the concrete footings (drill it out with an auger bit, or pull it up after screwing a massive eye bolt into it), you could drop a steel bar (a section of scaffold pole, for example) into the hole and set that in place with a little additional concrete - leave enough above ground to be able to bolt some new wooden posts to it.
Yes, I am surprised myself that the wooden posts lasted as long as they did. Dad dug the holes out (a great deal through large rocks), mom mixed up the concrete in a wheelbarrow using a hoe to mix it, and I carried the water and poured. Around three sides of almost 4 acres is a lot of fence posts. The corner posts, made from locally cut large cedar, still stands today.
I will have to look into this repair come spring and see how bad the remaining posts are rotted. I mainly want to do six or so across the front and driveway so I can put up another white plank fence that is about half-and-half vertical and horizontal at this time.
Fastest way to do the job, assuming aesthetics of minor importance is to drive in a star dropper (according to Wiki stateside they are called T-posts) beside each broken post and use a wire twitch to secure the planks.