Hoping I can pick your brains a bit COTH, we are going to be starting to install fence soon at our place, but neither my husband or myself has ever done it before so we had a few questions. We’ve been making our own fence posts out of cedars on the property, planning to set them 8 feet apart. We will have to rent some equipment to dig the holes, but when we are setting them do we need cement in the holes too? If so, how much? I saw a video where the guy just dumped the bag in the hole without premixing it, saying that the water in the ground would set it over time - that would save a ton of work if true! For fence boards, my husband was thinking 1x6’s, but others have said 2x6s (and I honestly don’t know what I’ve seen at barns over the years), thoughts? Is pressure treated lumber better? It is next to impossible to find right now so we may not have a choice, but ww would paint the fence to help with longevity. Thanks!
can give some answers but your soil and weather may affect parts of the installation.
For posts 8 ft. apart, concrete in only posts near corners or gates. Straight line posts do not need it. Make sure your posts are completely dried and cured.
1X6 pressure treated boards are fine just be aware that after 6-7 years many will get weak and break easily. Commercially cut lumber today is
not as strong as in old days.
Board fencing is usually 5/4 (inch and a quarter) rough cut lumber, 16’ board, to span 3 posts. Stagger your joints.
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Check w/ mills in your area as they can cut and prep whatever you want for boards. What’s available in my area are much less than 1" thick even though they’re sold as 1". Also longevity will depend on type of wood used for boards. Pine here, versus oak
in other areas.
we do not have a local source of rough cut but use 5/4 deck boards, the advantage is the edges are rounded
OP, can you drive the posts in your area? no backfill required and posts are set solidly
1x lumber has not been 1" thick for as long as I can remember. It is not special to your area.
Standard 1x lumber is 3/4” thick, 2x is 1.5”. This is across the whole country, it is an industry standard. Boards that are specifically cut to be fence boards are typically a true 1” or 5/4”. 1x lumber, even pressure treated, won’t last that long, maybe a few years, and it will be really easy for them to break.
Make sure your posts are set at 8’ on center, not 8’ in between them.
We only put concrete in the corner, brace, or gate posts. We did put some cross nails (think GIANT log cabin type nails that are as long as my forearm and about as thick as finger) in the base of any that were in lower areas to prevent the post rising over time.
Definitely do not have to mix concrete before–just put the dry stuff in the hole.
When we concrete posts in, we pour some concrete mix from sacks into the hole, add water we carry in old big kitty litter plastic containers, then more concrete, more water.
Generally for line posts/pipe we use 1 1/2 80# concrete mix sack per 8" x 3’ hole and 2 to 3 sacks per 10" x 3’ holes in corners and brace posts, more or less.
We are in very dry semi-desert, maybe further East you don’t need to add water, if it rains enough?
We dig the holes with an hydraulic post hole digger bolted to the side of our tractor’s bucket.
Pine lumber prices are at an all time high due to lower production levels. Availability is at an all time low. If you have a couple months, I’d wait it out.
Or…
Consider using electrobraid in place of board fencing.
Amazon shows 1000’ available by 8/7 for $179.
Pretty easy to install, looks neat & tidy (IMO) can be retensioned easily. Visible to horses & they won’t chew on it.
You don’t necessarily need to put a charger on it either.
I used coated tensile wire that can carry a charge, but in 16yrs of horses - turned out 24/7/365 - nobody has challenged or gone through it.
I have had to retention just one line of 3 (top line is 2-Wire Centaur-clone “board”) in all that time, from horses grazing through it.
Very basic, but do attach your rails to the inside of the posts.
Yikes. I like electrobraid and have had it on other properties, but it can and will deglove a limb. Yes, you need to keep it HOT 😮
Thanks for all the feedback so far! To answer a few questions, I am in southern Ontario and we have quite high winds on our property. Soil is sandy but with lots of rocks so I don’t think driving the posts will work unfortunately. With the lumber shortages we’d considered just doing electric for a year to wait it out, but then we’ve got to do the whole thing again in a year and we’d rather bite the bullet and get it done now! After a few other construction projects, I’ve come to realize that lumber is never as big as the stated measurement, so I was worried about 1" boards being too thin as they wouldn’t even be an inch. I hadn’t heard of 5/4" before so I will definitely look into that. From scouring previous threads, I have learned about measuring to the centres, staggering 16’ boards (which may be the only length we can get anyway!), and putting the boards on the inside, which are all great tips. I am so afraid we’re going to screw it up and make a huge mess of everything, but I am an overthinker/worrier. People have been building fences for eons, we should be fine, right?? :lol:
Horseguard electric tape is fantastic, even in high wind areas. Since you were already planning on posts 8’ apart, that’s not an issue at all, and you can go to 10-12’ if you want.
With your soil, you would need to concrete things, and of course the gate posts may also need to be tensioned. HG tape is hand-tensioned, so you don’t need to worry about extra tensioning of corner posts like you might with high tensile wire.
HG is far less $ to install and maintain than boards.
5/4 boards are standard decking boards.
Instead of boards why not use woven wire horse fence with a strand of electric tape at the top? That would last for a long, long time. I would never want to use electric fence as a perimeter fence.
Electric fence has worked very well for me and many others for over 10 years. Some people with higher traffic road frontage use board fencing there, and then electric tape for the rest of the perimeter. If a fence is going to be taken out, a fence is going to be taken out, boards don’t stop that. The no-climb with a board on top and a HOT wire on the inside is the most sturdy all around, but it’s also not cheap, and not necessary in all cases.
This is what I’m slowly working on replacing everything with on my farm. We bought it with a mix of wire mesh/top board, three strand electric, and three board. I detest board fencing and will never ever ever put it up myself. So high maintenance!
Many moons ago I used a high tension hot wire. The thick stuff you put on a spring at the corners. Was cheap but I think maybe not safe but I didn’t know any better 20 years ago and didn’t have any issue with it. Wood fencing is expensive. And horses chew on it and deer can break the boards.
We used 16 ft 2x6 boards on posts 8 feet apart with staggered attachment (screwed in not nailed). We used cement in holes that we could not get deep enough or corner or bracing holes plus a few along the span, but not every hole. We did get pit run gravel to fill every hole, you will need this. Are you milling your own boards? We did that for one section of our fence as we has a number of very large cedars that fell on the property.
