Creosote or concrete?

[EddieWalker]

You'll easily get 20 years out of treated wooden posts if you have good drainage around the posts. The reason most wood posts fail is because water sits at the base of the post for extended periods of time. Go six inches down on a rotten post and it looks brand new. If you try to back fill with dirt, it usually either washes away, or settles over time, leaving a low area. For long term, I prefer concrete because I can build up a cone around the post to shed water away from it. I have two wooden post on two gates at my entrance that where supposed to be temporary 15 years ago with no sign of rot of any kind.

My goal is to build a nice entrance gate out of steel with an automatic opener. Every year it gets put back another year to do more pressing projects.

I have two other gates going into my horse pasture, and six street lights that match my fence posts made out of 5 inch steel tubing. It's not galvanized, just regular steel tubing that's probably an eighth of an inch thick. I prime and paint it before putting it into the ground with a brush, and I do this at least twice, extra thick. Then I pour concrete and cone it up on the sides so water runs away. You can hit this with a car and the care will be damaged, but not the post!!!!

 

[Gary Fowler]

If you try to pour in place 6"concrete posts (sonotube with rebar) you will need a very good 1" vibrator to consolidate the concrete. It will need to be long enough to reach the bottom of the post otherwise you will have major voids in the concrete. Also due to the tight tolerances, a pea gravel mix should be used so it flows into the tight spots easier.

As a Quality Control Manager, I have found major concrete voids on small piers cast with onsite concrete even when done by professional construction crews. The voids were so severe that the piers had to be demolished and recast.

It would be much simpler if you could just find a precast post. The one advantage of pouring in place is that you could set your gate hangers in place rather than having to drill into the precast and set anchors.

 

[CincyFlyer]

Wood is such a temporary (garbage) material. It does exactly as nature intended. It rots. Where does anyone get creosote? I'd buy a barrel of the stuff! I love it. Especially the smell.

Go concrete, if you don't want to have to do it again.

You'd be surprised at how many large buildings and bridges were built on wood pilings, decades, and even a century ago. And are still standing.

 

[oosik]

I have two gates on my mile long driveway - inner and outer. The four gate posts are railroad ties obtained in 1982 when I had the driveway built. They were brand new - never uses - rail road ties in 1982 and you can still smell the creosote treatment on a hot summer day. They are full ten foot ties buried five feet - five feet exposed. I would estimate, based upon their current rate of degradation after 35 years - they will probably still be around, holding up the two gates 120 years from now. When I redid the mile and a half of four strand barbed wire fence around my 80 acres - there were still about 6 to 12 wood fence posts that were structurally sound. I later determined these were cedar posts - most likely obtained from somewhere further north here in WA state.

I just remember - the original barbed wire fence was installed on this property( homesteaded in 1892 ) during the year 1893. So those original cedar posts, that are still in use BTW are now around 135 years old. Did I mention - we are VERY DRY here - classified as semi-arid.

 

[rgr33]

I hung my pasture gates in 1987 using some telephone pole cut offs about 9 ft or so. Still good as new today, buried in soggy clay soil.
Modern pressure treated posts elsewhere on the property are beginning to fail regularly after 16 years. They are being replaced as they fail with metal posts. The cost of 8 foot metal and wood posts are now close to equal.

 

[LouNY]

If you could get actual creosote treated post and then tar them they would last, this newer so called pressure treated is pretty much garbage and you
will be lucky to get 20nyears out of it. Steel encased reinforced concrete should last or high quality well reinforced concrete would.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I knew a very talented energetic German guy here in the area. Never stopped building up his property. One day he told me how discouraged he was that all the wood construction he built over the years now needed replacing. He switched to concrete and stone. I never forgot this mans comments. He's dead and gone now, as is the wooden stuff he built. The concrete and stone is probably still there.

I love wood, as do the wood peckers around here, but try and use it only on vertical surfaces where it is a good distance away from the ground.

 

[grnspot110]

Don't know if they grow in your area, but around here if you want a post to last, use Hedge (Osage Orange). Cut a few this morning:

A good sized Hedge corner post will last well over 50 years!

 

[/pine]

Don't know if they grow in your area, but around here if you want a post to last, use Hedge (Osage Orange). Cut a few this morning: View attachment 532692

A good sized Hedge corner post will last well over 50 years!

likewise with black locust...if the posts are green you will likely end up with trees rather than just posts....(if they've not been split)...

 

[3Ts]

You can make your own precast posts with 2x material any length you want. Construct the form so the side is open and you don't have to vibrate concrete 5' deep. I used a sheet of plywood, several 2x6s and mass produced several 5-1/2" posts 8' long with one pour.