Our holiday project
Our fence got blown over from the wind (it is always blowing here). Since Mike had a long weekend he decided to replace the fence and enlisted my help. It was freezing, but thankfully there was no snow. Mike was annoyed that he had to fix the fence but I definitely think having your privacy is worth it. If you don't have a privacy fence, you should get one. While Mike was annoyed with having to fix the fence, I was annoyed with him for selling all his tools. I thought we'd owned this house long enough, and had to fix enough things that he would've thought about that before selling them all. He told me I needed to cut the post so I measured it and started going towards the garage when he said, "Uh, you've got to cut it with the hand saw."
Comments
I am sorry that you had to fix your fence. That stinks, but you are right, it is worth it! I hope it doesn't blow down again.
Chelsey, I didn't have to do too much of the hard work. Mainly all I did was cut the post and then lay the boards next to each other and nail. Mike did the lifting and shoveling.
We thought about cementing the posts but part of the problem is that when you cement them, the cement ruins the wood and it goes moldy. When the fence fell over the post broke in half partly because the cement had ruined the post. So Mike had to dig up the cement and the rest of the post. We decided just to dig a deep hole and then pack the dirt around the post. I hope the wind doesn't blow it over again either or we will have wished we cemented it anyway.
I love fences. We can't get one until we see if our new neighbors will help buy it on the side that's adjacent to us.
Hope it stays up for you.
I still don't understand the tool thing. I'm with you here!
No cement: water pools on top of the cement and accelerates the wood rotting right where it comes out of the cement(unless you can get the cement to slant away from the wood); digging up and replacing a post buried in cement (which these were) is significantly harder than replacing one without cement; my recently dead neighbor's son said his experience has been that cemented posts need to be replaced more frequently (he said this after he replaced one of our cemented posts a number of months ago); finally, if my repair doesn't last as long as it would, it's okay, it only needs to last another year and half :) .
Mike