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Sandy ground here eats fence posts for breakfast
I've been doing fence work near the coast for a while now, and there's a clear pattern. New fences look great when they go up, but many start to tilt after just one rainy season. I remember a job where we set posts three feet deep, thinking it was enough. A few months later, the whole line was leaning like it was tired. Turns out, sandy soil doesn't hold posts well, especially when it gets wet. We had to pull them all out and start over, which cost time and money. Now I always dig deeper, use concrete mix, and add extra gravel for stability. It's a simple fix, but it makes all the difference in keeping fences upright.
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anthony_campbell882d ago
Man, Drew's got a point about concrete sometimes trapping water and making rot worse. I've had better luck using a ton of pea gravel around the post in the hole instead of just soil. It drains way faster so the wood doesn't sit wet, and it locks the post in place almost like concrete once it's tamped down hard. You still need to go plenty deep, but that mix really helps with the shifting.
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drewgonzalez4d ago
About that 'pressure-treated wood helps it last longer' thing, I gotta disagree. Concrete can actually make things WORSE in sand because it traps moisture and speeds up rot. I've seen fences with concrete bases that still fail after a few years because the sand shifts around them. Sometimes, using a screw-in anchor or a wider base plate works better without all that extra work. It's not always about adding more stuff, but finding what actually holds in that loose ground.
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drewgonzalez4d ago
Yeah, "sandy soil doesn't hold posts well" is the truth. I heard using pressure-treated wood helps it last longer down there, even with the concrete.
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