Putting in a gate - need some advice

[mark02tj]

I want to put in a gate at the end of the driveway. Nothing fancy - probably just going with a 14' "farm gate" from the local feed store. We're just looking at something that will keep "explorers" from coming down our driveway in the middle of the night.

Anyway - here's the question... I'm wondering about the best way to anchor this. I know there are tons of threads on TBN about this, but I have a little twist on this. I was thinking about using a telephone pole piece that I have. It's about 12' long and about 12" in diameter. I have a couple of other telephone pole pieces that I can install as bracing. But, where the pole will be installed is about 20' from my well. And our water table is probably about 40' down or so. (I haven't measured it in the well - I should.) I'm a little concerned about the chemicals from the pole eventually leaching into the well water. Am I being over cautious? (or dumb? :confused2 There are actually a couple more poles buried about 30-40' away from this location (so, about 50' from the well), so they're already in fairly close proximity.

Or should I go with an I-beam, a large piece of Cedar or a standard pressure treated 8x8?

I ended up with these pieces after the cable company came through and wanted/needed new poles due to up-sized cables they were installing. The crew happily deposited the tops of the poles they were removing from service into my yard. They stacked them just inside my treeline along the driveway, which, coincidentally, was very close to the well. Walking past them, I could smell those logs. It made me nervous enough that I moved them to the other side of the property. Should I just get rid of these stupid things? I have a guy from CraigsList that wants them for fence posts around his pasture.

THANKS!!

 

[tman1020]

I don't know of any rules or regulations against telephone poles close to Wells however I do agree with your concern. Now that you've been fortunate enough to think of it why take the risk. In my opinion the best way to run a gate is to use a cantlever style sliding gate on rollers. They mount on 2 4" galvanized posts normally and are generally fairly problem free and are very strong. Plus they except power operators well should you decide to add one in the future.

 

[MFWD]

Hello,
I put a 16' bull gate across my lane after I bought the property. I used an I-beam to hinge the gate on and round steel pipe to close against. The I-beam had (16) 80lb. bags of concrete to anchor it to the ground. I think the steel post that it closes on had 12 80lb. bags. It's not going anywhere and no one is going to cut it down !!!! A chainsaw would make short work of a telephone pole. Good luck.

MFWD

 

[Rustyiron]

You ought to have some Locust trees growing around there. A good locust post might just outlast an old telephone pole, and with no creosote.