Fencing

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaworskihouse/8617605031/” title=”Fence Repaired, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8245/8617605031_38f0de4451_n.jpg” width=”320″ height=”213″ alt=”Fence Repair”></a><br />n<br />nThe back fence in the yard is really old. It was here when I got here in 1996, and hasn’t seen any maintenance at all. Just the opposite, in fact. It’s been weathered, weakened, and even attacked by huge roots from a feral weed tree that decided to grow right next to it. That tree grew for a long time, got tall, developed big, strong roots. That tree, with the help and cooperation of the neighbors, whose property it was on, is long gone. Fence is still standing, though.<br />n<br />nAs will happen, a few of the fence posts started rotting at ground level. One of the got bad enough that I had propped it up with a board. But it was still pretty fragile, and I knew that the next major wind storm would bring it down. Better to be ahead of the game rather than react postactively.<br />n<br />nA couple weeks ago, I contacted the neighbor who shares that fence with me and he was willing to help fix it. He’s a really good guy, bought the place and moved in at about 2010. Since he’s been there, he’s installed a small fruit orchard, a 6 by 8 ft hot house/greenhouse, and has had chickens. Regular homesteader. Cool!<br />n<br />nWe spent a few hours this past Saturday pulling out three of the worst fence posts and installing new ones. We set them in the same concrete as the old ones, shaving the new posts a bit to get them to fit right. Then we put down more concrete on top of the base to raise up the footing, minimizing the wood/earth contact, which greatly hastens wood rot.<br />n<br />nOn Sunday, Easter Sunday it was, we finished the job, reinstalling the sections of fence. All the while, we worked on preserving as much of the old fence pieces as possible. We were able to save, with a bit of a hack, all the cross beams, and we only replaced two of the dog ear fence boards. Total cost was only about $50. Not bad. We figure we’ll get at least another 10 years out of this fence, certainly out of these posts. But there are some more posts and other parts that will need attention much sooner than that, but we left it for another day.<br />n<br />nHere are some pics, with captions.<br />n<br />n<br />n<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaworskihouse/8617604745/” title=”Fence Repair Hack by jaworskihouse, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8265/8617604745_625bcb7305_n.jpg” width=”320″ height=”213″ alt=”Fence Repair Hack”></a><br />n<em>Here, you can see one of the main hacks. The cross beams got pretty beat up over the years, so we strapped them down to keep the wood together. The straps help anchor the beams to the posts as well as hold the splitting beam together.</em><br />n<br />n<br />n<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaworskihouse/8618714158/” title=”Fence Repair Hack by jaworskihouse, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8119/8618714158_f52024ace2_n.jpg” width=”320″ height=”213″ alt=”Fence Repair Hack”></a><br />n<em>This is another hack which is much less noticeable. It was tough to hammer a nail, or even place a screw into the bottom cross beam. I had some old sturdy angle irons, so we screwed one into the bottom to hold the beam. A hack on the hack was to use a piece of that plumbers tape strap, folded over once, as a washer since the screw heads were small enough to fit right through the holes in the angle iron.</em><br />n<br />n<br />n<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaworskihouse/8620101832/” title=”Fence Repair, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8542/8620101832_aa613a9c86_n.jpg” width=”320″ height=”240″ alt=”deep post holes”></a><br />n<em> We planned to reuse the existing post holes and concrete by cleaning out the remaining, decayed wood from the old post. You can see from the picture above, this particular post was set almost arm’s length deep!</em><br />n<br />n<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaworskihouse/8618713466/” title=”Fence Repair, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8104/8618713466_9153dd8164_n.jpg” width=”320″ height=”240″ alt=”underhand hammering technique”></a><br />n<em>Here I am with my patented, underhand, between the legs hammering technique. Getting those nails into the bottom side of the bottom cross beam took a bit of creative dexterity!</em><br />n<br />n<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaworskihouse/8618714896/” title=”Fence Repair, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8112/8618714896_12a4f61afa_n.jpg” width=”320″ height=”240″ alt=”neighbor image”></a><br />n<em>Here’s the neighbor, a huge help! Thank you!</em>