How long should a fence post last? Owing to a breakout of lambs last week I decided that a new fence was needed inside a stock fence that has more hole than fence until the weeds come through. Previously it looks as though odd gaps have just been filled in with whatever came to hand.

 Inspection of a fence I put in 2-3 years ago found that the majority of intermediate posts had rotted through at ground level, this is along the bottom of a hill on clay and I seem to remember went in quite easily suggesting the soil was holding water even in the summer of 2006.

 Do members use any additional chemicals on their "treated" posts at all? 

I seem to recall an old boy swearing by a mixture of diesel and creosote to treat his home cut posts in Practical Farm Ideas a few years ago.

 

You need to buy post ready treated, they are pressure treated. Alternatively you can buy post made from compressed recycled black plastic, they have been about for quite a few years.

No amount of just painting the posts just on the outside is going to make much difference to how long they will last.

Years ago the cleft oak posts were burnt or just blackened in a fire, the charring acted as a seal and a preservative, think they did it to lock gates on the cannals.

paddington bear:

How long should a fence post last?

Treated timber = twenty years on our well drained land. I have seen the ones made out of recycled plastic at the Royal Welsh and, at the time, 5.6" were about eight pounds each which I thought just too much.

I usually keep patching with whatever is at hand until such time as the whole length has lost its tension at which time it's time to get the fencer in. He can tension it much better than me.

 some of our have only lasted a year before going hence why we changed to another supplier when I cut the point off a post to use as a strainer I found the treatment had only gone in 1/2 to 1/4 of an inch. The fact is half the decent chemicals are banned and the ones they do use in the name of progress and speed don't get as good a soak as they should. My grandad use to swear by dunking the end of the post in the a drum of tar which he had put on a fire. Probably not legal now.

I assumed that the load of posts from my ag. merchant were tanalised, they had the greenish residue on them, could they have been dipped rather than pressure treated?

We have a tree that grows here called the Osage orange, we refer to it simply as a hedge tree.  It is an extremely hard wood,so hard that if you cure it you can't drive a nail into it.  In the mid 1980s my grandfather and I took out a fence that was built by his grandfather pre-1920.  It was on high well drained ground, the posts had only a millimeter or two of rot on them.  We still use hedge for corner posts and steel for line posts, the main drawback is the corners will burn off in fires.

KF, sounds like your hedge tree is what I need, though there seems to be a shortage of indigenous hardwood in this country at the moment. A neighbour who is a carpenter says he has to use French oak as he can't get enough of the English type.

Fires aren't such a problem over here, at least accidental ones!

Ours seem to last well until the bull gets scratching on them, they don't stand a chance they all break however old they are. The bloke that we get our gates and gate posts off said that some people but their posts,rails and any other wood they use for fending in a boiling pot of creosote and he claims the posts take years to rot.

 don't you mean creacoat as creasote is banned yet another example for stupid regs

The old railway sleepers are a good example of well creasoted timber, soaked right through, they make good gate posts or end stainer posts. Nothing worse than wire put up like "washing lines", If you put it up put it up TIGHT enough to play a tune on.

Found the article in Practical Farm Ideas, a 50/50 mixture of old oil and diesel with half a gallon of creosote (or creosol) is used to soak his home made posts for 3 weeks. The chap says he has had posts last for several decades.

Might be worth a try on my "treated" posts if only to extend their life for a few years. Soil drainage must be a factor, even after the recent dry weather our fields are still fairly soft.

What sort of guarantee do fencing contractors offer?

I agree that the banning of creosote is another example of bureaucratic over reaction to miniscule risk based on 'ELF and Safety.'

However, I was led to believe that it is still available to 'licenced' people but could someone confirm this. If this is so, what must I do and how much do I pay to get a licence?

 

Peter, I bought several 5 litre bottles of creosote at a farm sale quite a while after it was banned. I think it was listed as wood preservative in the catalogue. When we moved house the removals surveyor said that was one of the things they weren't allowed to carry along with paint, solvents, oils etc.

I sneaked in some engine oil and our old neighbours ended up with a nicely restored fence.

        It's a few years since I did a lot of fencing but, going back even further, we always used Larch posts. They are pretty good in the wet even without preservation. In the absence of hardwoods I think Larch is as good as you will get. Is Larch too expensive now?

        Our farm is pretty well drained so we moved on to treated timber posts. Our local sawmill uses a pressure treatment tank for this job which is supposed to make the preservative penetrate much deeper into the wood. We used to think that these preservative (not creasote) treated posts were more brittle and liable to break than the untreated ones.

Creasote:

Peter Wells:

I was led to believe that it is still available to 'licenced' people but could someone confirm this. If this is so, what must I do and how much do I pay to get a licence?

Eureka ! I have some. I got some from an Ag supplier after providing him with my holding number. He says licenced fencing contractors (is there such a thing?) and farmers can still get it.

Just looked on the website for my local ag. dealer, CCF and they have creosote in a choice of colours.

Treated larch posts should last 20 plus years, we have a fence erected just after the war with pressure treated tar posts which are still ok, an old fellow whose farm we bought used to have oaks made into fence posts, he had to drill small holes with a brace so that he could get the stapples in they  were so hard.

 

you should put in posts that rot through the year after your lease is up.

Hi All,

 

i have just had ro replace all my 3 x 3 as in 18months they had all gone rotten on the ground line, this preservitive they use now is awful!, found on the web a company called Postsaver.

this sleeve goes on the ground line section of the post and stops the rot, took me about 40 seconds to apply with my blow gun and I feel happier about installing a fence with this protection and at 59p for a sleeve its well worth it!

I need to put a fence post into a concrete floor and will try the tip mentioned in Practical Farm Ideas of  fastenning builders galvanised strips to the post to aid extraction when it does finally rot in a few years.

 yea on the creosote point... they bought out new rules at the time and told no-one the full story.

creosote, in the UK got banned a few years back... but thats only for residential use. It's fine to use creosote on fences away from houses, i.e. farm fences. at last look its about £1/litre

loads of horse stables use it in an attempt to stop biting of fences.... it doesnt work.

 

fence post life time- well we stopped milking in '99 and so had to fence everywhere to bring in sheep, fences are still fair.. thats your cheap half round posts, pushed in with a loader, all done by farmers not fencers.

Why not put in a concrete post or better still a galvanised pipe save a lot of hassle in the long run!!

We have posts sunk in concrete that have probably been there for twenty years, it is the fence posts bought and installed within the last few years that seem to be rotting the quickest !

paddington bear:

it is the fence posts bought and installed within the last few years that seem to be rotting the quickest

That is my experience too. As the journalist Patrick Hutber used to say. "Improved," means worse.

To all,

 

I find your comments very interesting, and very worthwhile reading, there is no getting away from the fact that CCA is now banned, and Tanilised Posts DO NOT LAST, proof of this is my own Tanilised Fence has not lasted very long, Creasote will be banned bacuase the envoirmental issues and also the hassle of applying it, and a friend has warned me that yes you can buy it still but its not the same 30 years ago when I was a lad and when I did buy it it all seems very watery, no thickness to it.

Ive been stuck and needed a solution so I have invested in Postsaver sleeve, what a doddle to put on and goes tight on the post, double the life PLUS, and for what 53 p a sleeve, they also Guarentee it!

I have helped the countryside without the need for chemicals that claim to work.... but dont! and I have installed Fencing with a protective barrier that wont harm animals and will last. Look at it, try it, but whatever you do.... dont buy fence posts without you, otherwise you all wll be wasting your money, or watching our hard earned cash rot as quick as the fence does!!!