North East Fence Corner 2

 The first post I was working with on this corner seemed to go fairly easily.  The original post had decomposed inside the concrete slug, and the concrete slug was partially intact.  I was able to use this partially intact concrete slug to hold the first post to stabilize this corner.  I had intended to return to this post, finish cleaning out the hole, and then pour a new concrete slug to hold a new post that is square to the rest of the fence.  Easy right?  Not...  Down in the bottom of this hole was the remainder of the concrete slug that was wider at the bottom of the hole.  It was very difficult to remove, and I wound up breaking my shovel trying to remove it.

So it took several hours to finish cleaning out this hole.  After I removed the old concrete I was able to set a new post, and refill the hole with some fresh concrete.  Now the North East fence corner has four fresh posts to support it, and it is solid once again.

This one corner has taken about three days of work, and it is not done yet.  I plan on adding a pressure treated 2x8 footer board to seal the bottom of the panel to the ground.  Then I want to replace the runners with 2x4 pressure treated boards so that all the support structure is pressure treated wood.  Last I want to replace the pickets with pre-stained 6 inch Cedar Boards to make it pretty.  So, maybe another day, and this prototype panel will be done.

North East Fence Corner

 Old Fence...  Big Puppy Sigh...  My Fence was built with Cedar Posts.  While they look nice, they don't last very long.  They seem to break most often where the post meets the ground.  That is where the most stress is.  Lateral forces (wind mainly) push the Fence back and forth, and the place that the Post bends is where it meets the ground.  There are other forces that act on this area as well like the String Trimmer, and ground dwelling Insects.  When the Post breaks at this area usually two Fence Panels are affected because the Fence Panels are joined at the end with a Post.  The end of the Fence Panel is the weakest place to put the Posts.  The ends of the Rails deteriorate first, and it is better to secure the Rails to the Posts in the middle of the Rails.

When you place the Posts at the ends of the fence Panels, each Panel gets half the Post.  This means each Fence Panel get two halves of a Post, or one Post per Panel.  So you get a six foot by eight foot Sail with one Post to hold it.  No wonder they fail right at the point where the Post meets the ground.  When it is windy you could have some significant forces bending your Posts back and forth considerably.  This puts considerable stress not just on the Post, but also the ends of the Fence Rails.

Then this is what you get over time.  The two Fence Posts on this corners are broken at the ground.  The Fence would have fallen over because the ends of the Fence Rails are deteriorated, but I used Steel Joiners to reinforce the joints at the Fence Posts.  The Steel Joiners were a previous reinforcement idea, that worked, but the Cedar deteriorated anyway.  Going forward I am going to use two Posts per Fence Panel attached in the middle of the Panel.  This will double the strength of the Fence to Ground connection.  Also I plan on making a Flow Through design with the Pickets so that air can flow through the fence, but we retain the "privacy" fence design.  I need to draw something to elucidate this.  There will be Pickets on both sides of the Rails which are staggered to block light, but with wide gaps to allow air flow.  The North East Fence Corner is my prototype for this design.  More forthcoming...