Repairing concrete fence posts in garden

financequest

Dear colleagues, on either side of my back garden, I have a fence made from 6ft by 3ft wood lattice panels slotted into concrete posts. Over the years, several of these posts have started to crumble badly:eek: ,(guess frost damage).So bad now that some panels are no longer supported. I tried to dig just one of these posts out, and found that it seems to have been mounted in a ball of concrete :mad: . I wondered if I could repair existing posts. Temporarily remove wooden panel, break away all loose/flaky post material, build a wooden mould around each post to replicate original profile, fill with fresh concrete, leave to set. Then coat each post to reduce/prevent future frost damage. Any thoughts ?. Manually removing/replacing every post (16) will no doubt be a massive/expensive job.

jimexbox

Personally I would replace the concrete posts that are stating to crumble, it sounds like a right hassle to try and repair them. Which I dont think will work, as concrete slabs/posts etc etc need to poured and dried in one hit, otherwise you will have a weak point where the two layers of concrete meet.

Getting them out usually isn't to hard, you need to dig right round each post in turn, obviously with the fence panels removed, then rock them back an forth till they fall out. Just put some lager on ice, as you will need it come nightfall.;)

bigdoozer

get a local fencing co in, haggle the price, put kettle on and watch them struggle. The 'balls' of concrete will weigh around 100kgs, but tryuing to repair concrete posts is nigh impossible as the metal rods will have been rusted too.

ormus

a repair would only be a temp measure as the rust is stll there in the rods and will break the concrete again. plus its a lot of work.
replacement is the only real answer. the post are not expensive. but the labour time is fairly long.
if DIY then its a cheapish job.

MX5huggy

Take down the fence smash the posts off at ground level angle grind the reenforcement bars. Then put up the new fence with the posts between the location of the old ones jobs a gooden! Untill in 20 years some one has the same idea!

financequest

Thanks for responses sofar. The concrete posts are £13.98 at B&Q. Replacing just 1 will take a long time.Re MX5huggy reply, inserted new posts offset will mean that in 2 places, the panels can no longer be 6ft.I am tempted to try my original plan, but using galvanised rods to strengthen corner of each post. May also consider using something other than cement. Posts can be painted afterwards.

markie1980

Too be honest, it depends how valuable your time is - If you can be earning money instead of spending along time repairing these posts, it would probably workout cheaper to get someone in to do it properly.

On the other hand, if you have plenty of time to spend trying this, is may be a cheap fix which may or may not work but you won't waste alot of money trying it.

Personally i would replace the posts, but that's because i like to do a job as well as it can be done and am a bit of a perfectionist!

Mark.

27col

There is no way that you could make an effective repair to the damaged posts. I expect that the steel has rusted and expanded. They would probably pull out of the ground if you apply pressure to the top of the post. Obviously they will be very heavy, but can be broken up for transport to the tip. Best to start from new I would have thought.

financequest

Dear MSE colleagues, I plan to try original plan on the 4 posts that have failed completely.If the trial fails a year from now, I have lost nothing. Will update MSE members on progress.

Andy437

Hi,
Was wondering how you got on, and what your final solution was ? I have a similar problem in my garden, the March winds have damages the wooden panels and not looking at the concrete posts they are in a very poor state. I think I agree with previous posts... repairing sounds very difficult although I was thinking maybe some kind of resin based compound would patch up sufficiently. It would only be temporary though, I can't see it lasting more than a year or so. New concrete posts seems the only option but I'm not looking forward to digging them out !

ic

I had a local fence man in - he supplied and fitted a fence at the same price as me ordering the parts from the same supplier. Bonus was he put up a 16 panel fence in three days and it was perfectly straight. I'd have taken three times as long and can guarantee it'd be nowhere near as good.