Leveling Fence Posts????

[beppington]

Exactly right..................Keep the top of each post the same distance from grade and it will look good...............

I did that in the beginning, followed he dips & rises very closely, & mine looks herky-jerky in those areas. Not nearly as professional as my later fenceing where I smoothed it out more, not following the dips & rises so closely.

Of course beauty is in the eye ...

 

[beppington]

drop the posts in, and then come back with a chain saw, or circlr saw or like. and cut the tops off of each post. say 4 feet off the ground. to get even post height that rolls with the hills on property.

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if ya want a constant level of fence and not going with the hills of the land.

as far as strings, transit or laser levels. forget all 3 of them. Water Level quickly made, cheap, and easy to DIY.

DIY: Water Level Gauge

either buy a couple things of duct tape (gray tape) or have a second person holding the other end. as you go down the posts and marking with a pencil were the boards need to go. and how much you need to chop off of a post.

What if he has anything but perfectly level ground?

BTW, I do also cut the post tops off with a chainsaw.

 

[boggen]

What if he has anything but perfectly level ground?

BTW, I do also cut the post tops off with a chainsaw.

water level works out nicely, over short or long distances, over rough ground, or even around corners and trees were you might not be able to see.

and allows you to take height measurements fairly easily with a tape measure. so if need be can figure out slope. or perhaps angle to cut end of a board.

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for me, if working on un level ground, i would be more concern with animals. and making sure they can not get there heads in between the boards vs looks.

if going for looks, you can pickup some electrical hot wire fence. but it is more of a mesh / fabric. that is a couple inches wide. and might make it easier to see how things curve. vs a wire or string used to look at curvature.

but still, if land is that un even, perhaps be better to regrade the land. so it is a tad more level. or rather more even grade to slopes. so the rails are not going up and down every other post. but more of a constant slopes going down a hill or up a hill. vs trying to mask the problem by moving the rail boards up and down some to get a curve wanted.

 

[CurlyDave]

A water level is more accurate than any other type of level. A rotary laser level is faster to use, but is not as accurate, although it is generally "good enough".

I have always been amused when I would level something with a water level and some contractor would come in afterwards and tell me I should have done it the "professional" way -- with a laser, in full belief that the laser was more accurate. Not one of those guys ever got the job.

P.S. I have a laser level and know how to use it, which is not always as simple as it appears.

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For a fence, I am in the go with the contour of the land camp.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I was taught to do it by eye forty years ago. We've done a half mile by eye, one crew starting at one end and another crew at the other end. You couldn't tell where we met.

I look at it this way. The last thing you do is look down the line to see if it's straight and true. We all judge it by eye, some of us even do it by eye.

Somewhere here there is a tutorial I did on setting posts by eye. It's probably six to eight years old. I was a lot younger when I did it.

 

[beppington]

A water level is more accurate than any other type of level. A rotary laser level is faster to use, but is not as accurate, although it is generally "good enough".

I have always been amused when I would level something with a water level and some contractor would come in afterwards and tell me I should have done it the "professional" way -- with a laser, in full belief that the laser was more accurate. Not one of those guys ever got the job.

P.S. I have a laser level and know how to use it, which is not always as simple as it appears.

* * * * * *

For a fence, I am in the go with the contour of the land camp.

I don't understand the reason for a water level; Wouldn't the terrain need to be perfectly level (& flat) for a level to be useful?

 

[ITHINKICAN]

laser level or string level....would not matter.

the problem is, no ones property is entirely flat. you cant set the top of all the fence posts to the same height, otherwise if you have a 4 foot hill, the fence posts may only end up being 6" tall.

Our land is kinda flat... when we do our pond I'd like to use the extra dirt to give it more character.

We had about 1200 feet of white vinyl fencing installed on the front of our property. Its all rolling hills (slight rolling). They kept most of the posts the same length, and made it so the tops of the fence posts followed the rolling hills. No sudden jumps or drops, just a smooth rolling like the land.

The guys did this with simple string lines.

WOW!! That is one sweet looking fence!! I can't imagine how much a vinyl fence would cost... but it should last forever so probably worth the investment.

 

[grsthegreat]

Our land is kinda flat... when we do our pond I'd like to use the extra dirt to give it more character.



WOW!! That is one sweet looking fence!! I can't imagine how much a vinyl fence would cost... but it should last forever so probably worth the investment.

Vinyl isn't cheap, but its maintenance free, so far 7 years with only 2 replaced panels (i broke them with thrown rocks from snowblower). The horses do not mess with them either. As long as theres green grass there, they leave fence alone.

 

[moored4]

Vinyl isn't cheap, but its maintenance free, so far 7 years with only 2 replaced panels (i broke them with thrown rocks from snowblower). The horses do not mess with them either. As long as theres green grass there, they leave fence alone.

Any fence can be "Maintenance free" if you have the right animal to feed availability ratio right and there is nothing on the other side that is interesting to them, stud/mare, other animals, apple tree, others harassing your animals, offering them treats, or who knows! Also start crowding the population ratio of a fenced in area and the fence will get stressed!

 

[boggen]

not best diagram in world. nor did i attempt to make it very accurate. but more of an attempt. to help visualize rough ground. to more even gentle slopes.

if ya using water level to get grade and better slopes. just get some long sticks. and space them out evenly. then get like red tape or something easy to see from some distance. and wrap tape around each stick, were you want the grade to be / slope to be. and bring in dirt or remove dirt. and use the red tape like markers of were you need to adjust things. the water level comes into play. of figuring out how much slope (rise (height) or run (horizontal distance) ya want to keep, over a certain distance. and allows you to drag water level to each stake. and measure distance between other ones. so you can get more of a constant 1" to 5" slope. as ya go over a nice gentle rolling hill.

once ya have a nice working slopes, that will allow fence to roll along with the ground easier. then it becomes much easier to set posts. put boards up and cut top of posts off, without having to adjust each board up and down.

if driving down a given road enough. were there are fence boards and you can them from a distance. you can make out sometimes the (ups and downs) that folks have put in, in attempt to get a more gentle curve in the boards.

but when you are up close and personal putting boards up. it may all look ok, but not from a distance. and it will start looking like an older fence with repair jobs done to it. couple inches there 3 inches there 4 inches there....