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My neighbor saw me fighting with a fence post and gave me the simplest fix
I was out in my yard in Denver last Tuesday, trying to set a new fence post in a hole that was just a bit too wide. The post kept leaning no matter how much dirt I packed around it. My neighbor, Frank, who's been in construction for thirty years, walked over with his dog. He watched me struggle for a minute and just said, 'Kid, throw a few handfuls of gravel in there first, pack it down hard, then add your dirt.' I had a bag of pea gravel left over from another job. I did what he said, and that post is solid as a rock now. It was such a small thing, but it saved me hours of frustration and probably a crooked fence. Has anyone else got a simple trick like that for setting posts in loose soil?
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richard_young806d ago
Yeah fisher.thomas is right about the crushed rock. The real pro move is mixing that gravel with some dry concrete mix before you tamp it. Gets hard as a rock and locks everything in place for good.
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emma_baker616d ago
Frank's gravel trick is a classic. I learned the hard way that just dirt in wet clay is a recipe for a leaning post. My own fence looked like a drunk smile for a whole season before I dug them all out and used the gravel base. It feels so obvious once you know, but you have to be told.
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fisher.thomas6d ago
Frank's gravel trick works, but pea gravel is the wrong choice. The round stones don't lock together. You want crushed gravel or what we call road base. The jagged edges bind when you tamp it down, creating a solid, stable base that won't shift over time. Pea gravel can still let the post settle and move. For a permanent fix, the type of rock matters as much as using rock at all.
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