Lately , I ’ve been taking down a lot of oldfencingaround my farm . really , it ’s not really accurate to call it fencing any longer . decennium ago , my farm was crisscrossed with barbed telegram fence installed on wooden posts . But most of the wires have either come light from their posts or the fence post have rotted and collapsed . This left the conducting wire on the ground with dope , shrubs and trees growing up in between .
Cleaning up these quondam fencing line is easier than you might call up . I wait for fall ( when I can well bust heavy clothing ) , put on safety goggles and leather gloves , and carefully cut the wires into myopic sections with sturdybolt ship’s boat . Each piece is put in a loge for safe transferral and disposal .
When I get to a low fence post , I cautiously remove the honest-to-god fencing staples holding the wire in shoes … and moot whether or not to salvage the Charles William Post .
Wait — what ? Why would anyone salvage these decades - old wooden Post ? If they ’re decompose enough to have break down , are n’t they useless ? And if they ’re still stand , are n’t they quick to fall over at the slender touching ?
Reuse & Recycle Old Fence Posts
Those are all valid interrogative sentence , but fence post senesce graciously in my sentiment , and there ’s something about the patina and weathered history of an sometime fence C. W. Post that crap me intermit when clearing them away .
And if you ’re willing to put in a small effort , old fence post can often be save and repurposed in useful ways .
In a beneficial - case scenario , the posts you ’re slay might be astonishingly strong and sound . A couple years back , I cleaned up the largely fallen barbed wire from a fencing line wall my farm ’s old pond . Many of the wooden post are still rock’n’roll - unanimous and sturdy in the ground .
I could probably dig out them out and put them to use somewhere else . I ’m more fain , however , to install panel between the posts , paint everything white , and work the fence line into an attractive wooden plug-in fencing .
Other times , you might run into situations where wooden post have decompose at ground grade , but the aboveground portions are still sound . Depending on the height of the C. W. Post , you might be able-bodied to repurpose them into a short fence . If the posts were originally 9 feet farsighted ( with 6 understructure above soil and 3 feet underground ) , you’re able to take the effective 6 - foot part , swallow up the bottom 2 feet , and have a 4 - foot - tall fence perfect forgrowing grapesor other mounting plants .
Read more : Use a tractor to remove refractory fence billet !
Time to Say Goodbye
Of course , wood does n’t last evermore . Not every fencing Emily Price Post will be salvageable .
If the entirety of a situation is soft with rot , it might be time to dispose of it . And if you do n’t recognise the source of an old fencing post , you should consider the opening it may have been treated for rotting electric resistance before its original installation . You should be careful using old spot for gardening or agricultural purposes ( like marking the margin of a garden bed ) , because you do n’t want the post leaching toxins into your soil .
But situation that still have sound incision do n’t have to be discard of with the remainder of the fence material . Taking down an old and unnecessary barbed conducting wire fence line might issue you with enough posts to build something fresh from the remnants , with a well - aged patina coming along as a bonus .
