Snow Plow resistant mailboxes

[furlong47]

@Ponycatraz

Also a former Michigan resident. We did use pallets. Snow plow drivers try to miss the mailboxes but the ton of snow they push is what kills them. Ours was like this.

The first time I traveled to Michigan (and the UP specifically) was in fall/September, and I noticed almost every mailbox had some kind of wall like this in front of it. Not even thinking of snow, I wondered if there was a serious local issue with kids driving around and bashing mailboxes with bats

[3PonyFarm]

Zipties! Brilliant! Now your just being fancy!

[Leather]

This is a common theme on our local community FB page. Somebody who lives on a curvy county road that had lost their mailbox multiple times due to the snowplows and crappy drivers drifting on the curves finally resorted to having this built. It’s swinging and has a metal deflector plate.

Thankfully we live on a dead-end side road so don’t have to deal with the high-velocity snow coming off the plows taking out our mailbox.

[3PonyFarm]

You all have awesome ideas! I should enlist all of you to help solve the problem of my roaming washing machine. I just chased it across the laundry room and had to tackle it when it went into its spin cycle.

[trubandloki]

@3PonyFarm

I just chased it across the laundry room and had to tackle it when it went into its spin cycle.

Was it properly leveled when it was installed?

[3PonyFarm]

I have an old farmhouse that we made one of the rooms a laundry room. NONE of the floors are level but we supported the floor underneath the room and made a heavy duty and level platform to support the washer. The washer before this one was self leveling it you tipped it forward and set it back down. It was also very heavy! This one is very light and jumps all over the place. Im thinking we are going to have to redo the platform and Im thinking of using a stall mat type material under it as the anti vibration pads are not working!

[frugalannie]

Back to mailboxes for a minute (not that the washing machine doesn’t need corralling) we just set out mailbox far enough off the road bed that it’s unlikely to take a direct hit, but then there are some big old trees about 15 feet either side of it that would give the plow driver quite a headache if he strayed that far. We had to install about 8 feet of telephone pole next to the mailbox anyway, 4 feet exposed, after kids took to bashing mailboxes in our neighborhood with baseball bats of some such. They hit that telephone pole and I’m pretty sure they remembered not to do it again.

One of my neighbors employed some yankee ingenuity to build a cantilevered arm to hold the mailbox out of wood, which he then painted nicely. The beauty part was that he mounted the end of it on a post with either a pivot or hinges. Then there are opes going from the mailbox to the big trees behind it in a “V” shape. When snow is forecast, he just releases one rope, pulls the other and the mailbox swings out of the way. Then he resets it when fear of plowing is over. As he’s gotten older, this is how he collects his mail, too!

[3PonyFarm]

That sounds cool! Send him over!

[B_and_B]

I love that idea! I could build that with a counterweight, and could swing it over into the driveway. No more stepping out onto the verge of a road that has seen two fatal single car accidents on the curve in the last decade!
Now as for walking washing machines…I lived in a flat once where mine did that…then I got to know my downstairs neighbors…

[3PonyFarm]

I bet your neighbors were thrilled! Fortunately my washer only bugs me (scares the dog, cats want to check it out)

[Mango20]

My mailbox has a splint. It was taken out by a farmer who rents fields at either end of my narrow road, while transporting a disc, I think. He snapped the 4x4 post right off about 18" from the ground, and dented the box. I fit the two broken parts of the post back together like setting a broken bone, and screwed a small piece of wood to either side to hold it together. Banged the dents out of the mailbox to the best of my ability, and called it a day. My splint has been in place for a few years now.

[B_and_B]

It disconnected the feed and the drain pipe, it leaked with a vengeance! And the floor was, shall we say, permeable? I really got to know them!

[3PonyFarm]

Yikes! I used a couple strong level 4 cuss words at my washing machine. Fortunately I was home alone so no witnesses (just pets) to my tirade.

[2DogsFarm]

@3PonyFarm

Now your just being fancy!

I’d add some duct tape, but I don’t want the neighbors thinking I’ve gone all Downtown.

[3PonyFarm]