Most Brits prefer to line their gardens with six-foot fence panels for three extremely good reasons. One, they provide a good level of privacy against prying eyes, not only from neighbours, but from anyone passing by. Two, they make a burglar’s job of entering your garden much more difficult than if you’d only erected a 3 foot fence or no fence at all. Finally, they do their best to take the worst of the rain and high winds away from your garden, giving your garden the opportunity to flourish and prosper.
You’re going to have to keep your fence posts and fence panels in the best condition that you can or you’ll find yourself having to make repairs which, although relatively easy, do demand an element of effort and perhaps a friend to help you complete the task.
What if the fence posts break?
When a fence post breaks, there is every chance that it will bring down a fence panel or two at the same time and you’ll be looking at buying new fencing unless the damage to the panels isn’t too bad.
You will need to replace the fence posts if they break as they form the foundation of the stability of your fence panels around your garden.
If your fence post was set into the garden with a metal fence post holder which has a large spike at the base which is driven into the ground, you should be able to un-tighten the part of the post holder which holds the fence post so that you can remove all of the fence posts and replace it with a new one quite easily. However, if, like most people, you have sunk your fence posts 2 foot into the ground in solid concrete, you may not want to face the task of digging out all of the concrete and replacing your fence posts by starting the whole job again. This is where the repair spike saves your day.
Adding repair spikes to your shopping list
Where posts have rotted and broken off either at ground level or higher up, and the base of your fence post still sits solidly in a confident concrete base, you can use a repair spike as your facility for replacing fence posts.
They are usually made from mild steel. They will be galvanised and powder coated – like painting – to give them a long life against rusting.
You will need to cut the post just below the area where it is rotten so you are only left with good wood in the concrete base. The repair spike is simply driven by hammer or mallet – a sledgehammer might make the task easier and quicker – between your old wood and the concrete. This means you don’t have to remove any of the concrete to provide a support for your new post. It’s now a simple job of fitting your fence post back into position and then buying new fencing or using your existing fencing panels if they are still in good condition to reinstall the border between your garden and that of your neighbour.
At first sight, a rotten fence post is a worrying dilemma and replacing fence posts doesn’t look an easy task, but with the correct use of repair spikes you can have your fencing reinstalled in less than a day.
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