Pipe fence, Post driving or concrete

[Lawnman TX]

I have just purchaced 16 acres in N. Texas and am about to start a pipe and rod or 2x4 wire fence. Will be using 2 7/8 or 3 1/2 inch oilfield pipe and wanted to know the good and bad of driving.

It has been suggested to drive 5' deep, if set in concrete I would probably use a 9"x 4' hole.


Anyone with driving experience out there?

Thanks,

Jason

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I have just purchaced 16 acres in N. Texas and am about to start a pipe and rod or 2x4 wire fence. Will be using 2 7/8 or 3 1/2 inch oilfield pipe and wanted to know the good and bad of driving.

It has been suggested to drive 5' deep, if set in concrete I would probably use a 9"x 4' hole.


Anyone with driving experience out there?

Thanks,

Jason

I use concrete but I have friends who drive.

The cost is about the same if you're using good pipe materials wise.

I wouldn't use used oil pipe material. The stuff that's available now with there being high demand has to be some really poor stuff. There's also the fact that the stuff coming out of the ground has been exposed to some pretty nasty stuff down there for a long time. You can't haul it for scrap without taking a chance that it might not pass a Geiger counter test. If it doesn't then you're facing thousands of dollars per ton for disposable. One of my fence buds was told a couple of years ago that it was ten thousand dollars a ton for disposal.

The reason for the concrete is the size of the cylinder in the ground. A one foot cylinder has a lot more resistance to side movement than a three inch one. I don't care how deep you go. The same thing for vertical movement.

If you're in blackland keep in mind there will be movement. Heck, it moves houses, swimming pools are now installed with piers because it moves them too.

 

[EddieWalker]

My wifes uncle is a welder and does quite a few pipe fences. He said he wont touch any used oilfield pipe because you never know what you are getting. It might be fine, or it might be paper thin. You just never know what it will be until you cut it or try to weld it. So much of it is junk that it's not worth messing with any of it.

Harvey makes a good point about the soil moving. I think he posted some pics awhile ago about a fence that didn't go deep enough, or maybe didn't use enough concrete, but what I remember is how crooked that fence was from the soil moving it around.

If you are going to take the time and spend the money on a quality fence, do it right and spend the little extra to make sure you only have to do it once.

Eddie

 

[swines]

Have used pipe and tubing for a pipe fence. Tubing wins hands down. The pipe is PTA to work with and is usually heavily rusted, which eventually eats through the paint no matter how you treat it.

Look around, you can probably find a place that stocks tubing for fences. I use 11 gage for the posts, and 14 gage for the rails. The length of the tubing I got was 21-feet per tube - meaning I could get 3 posts per tube. For my fence, that meant 2-feet in the ground and 5 feet above ground.

Unless you're contemplating having livestock (especially cattle) that will use the fence for scratching, there's no reason to go 4-feet deep. I have my posts 2-feet deep with a 6-inch diameter concrete footing in very sandy soil (little support from the soil) and the fence has been in-place for nearly 10 years. The posts are spaced at 10-foot intervals. The fence is finished with horse wire to keep the dog in - and the neighbors' dogs out.

What you'll find, is that as you put the rails on, the fence becomes much stronger as you're tying everything together. In fact, the power company excavated under one corner post to get to an underground service, leaving the post with the footing exposed with a hole under it over a weekend. It sagged very slightly (about 2-inches from the weight of the concrete footer), but when they filled the hole, they lifted the post back level and backfilled - no problem.

I used 4-inch, schedule 40 tubing for gate posts, and those I did set 4-feet deep in concrete footings. I have two gate panels across my driveway - each panel is 11-feet long.