Setting fence posts in gravel rather than concrete and other fence tips and tricks?

[Big Bri]

I've put up many many feet of wood dog ear fencing, i always used cement in every hole. We would dome the cement above the ground to avoid puddling.
Like some one else Post usually rot at the ground level and by doming your concrete it helps to avoid if not eliminate this. You also said you want to build panels and install on your post. The two things i would worry about this are one while trying to hold up these heavy panels, leaning on post that are not concreated in i think you will have a lot of movement. Also i find that panel fences are very week and seem to sag a lot. The proper way to do a dog ear fence is to start with a 16' top rail, use and 8' mid rail, and a 16' bottom rail. after that use all 16' rails, this will keep you from having a post with all splices. this will make it harder to blow over or have a panel get knocked off after hitting it with the mower or tractor.

also when setting your post don't set them every 8', i like to take my run and divide it by 8, so if you have a 212' run divide that by 8 and you get 26.5, round up and now divide 212 by 27, and that leaves you with 7.85 or about 7'9" for your post spacing. This keeps you from having 2 post at the end close together. It also keeps you from coming up short when installing rails. What i did was nail the top 16' up and use my skill saw to cut the end off in the middle of the post, do the same for the mid rail and bottom.
I wish you luck on your fence.

 

[jcaron2]

Really? Just last night I finished re-decking the dock on my lake. It sits on six 6X6 posts that have been submerged, supporting the dock, for almost 20 years. They were in near perfect condition and perfectly solid just 1/16" of an inch in. If you consider those "sub-standard", I don't need "standard". I honestly do not care if it's still here in 150 years.

Fully submerged lumber will tend to last many, many times longer than buried wood. Completely untreated wood can last literally centuries under water.

If I remember right, the HD and Lowes' non-ground-contact pressure treated wood has a chemical retention level of 0.2 PCF (pounds per cubic foot). Their ground-contact rated wood (including all posts), is 0.4 PCF. That's at the bottom end of what's acceptable for ground contact. At a lumber yard you should be able to get 0.6 PCF or 0.8 PCF, which will last much, much longer than the cheaper HD lumber (and you may even find that HD's lumber is not, in fact, cheaper).

The other advantage of a lumber yard is that you may be able to find a lift of posts that has been sitting around for a while, all stacked, stickered, and banded. This is a big advantage, since the posts won't be so green (as in water content, not color). If they've been sitting around for a couple of months while stacked and banded, they'll tend to still be quite straight and true, and they're much less likely to warp after you put them in the ground. At the big box stores, the turnover tends to be so fast that you have no choice but to buy soaking, sopping wet wood which, if it's not already severely warped, probably will be soon. Not to mention it's a lot harder on the back moving all that extra water weight around.

Ditto for the rails. At the very least, you should buy your rails ASAP and stack them somewhere (or build them into panels as you're planning to do) so they can dry out for a month or so before you put them up if possible. It's really amazing how much they'll shrink in length (let alone width). Sometimes as much as a half inch or more - easily enough to sheer off the screws you used to connect them to the post.

Good luck!!

 

[Gary Fowler]

I have put in several fences and used the Lowes or Home Depot 4 x4 x 8 foot post cemented in with sackrete and mounded above the ground level like Big Bri mentioned. I have never had one rot off above or below ground. A hurricane blew over (not down) one section of fence that was about 20 years old. I managed to pull most of them, sledge hammer off the concrete and the post looked just like new. I alway put in a small amount of concrete mix to set the post on so it is not exposed to the soil, fill the hole completely with concrete and mound it around the top to a couple inches above the ground so no water gets to it. Never had a problem with any post, but the above ground materials will rot out on youl. Last fence I build, I used a 1x6 treated "rot board" which is standard fence design in the Houston areas. This board sets either on the ground or close to it and then you put your 6 foot fence boards on top of that. This keeps those pesky termites away from your fence, keep your fence boards off the ground so you dont get end rot and if you need to replace the rot board in 10 years or so, you just need 1 eight footer to go between your fence sections

 

[jbardock]

setting posts in clayish soil, I have clay, greasy clay, by adding 1 inch granite clean rock as I compact the layers to ground level. My fence posts do not lean nor change vertical alignment. Buy a proper fencing tamper, square and level posts, Compact as you go clay and rocks will make your posts atomic prrof.
My posts 10 feet long, set 42" in the ground 1 1/2 p gravel underneath, clay soil removed when augering was mixed 50/50 clay & !" granite clean rock, Tamped at 2" intervals, with small amounts of water. 140 lineal fence still no major problems after 6 years. tamp hard reap the the long term benefits

 

[Egon]

I seem to recall using the butt end of the post maul as a tamping tool.