Renewed

New to Old comparison...  New, January 2026...

 The Old in October 2025...

 This is after I started working on it.  It did have all its pickets before I started...

East Fence Alignment

 The East Side Fence is the bottom of the property.  There are more rotted post in this area than all the rest of the fence.  The fence line was pretty messed up, so the first thing to do was to get the fence back in line...  Notice the blue line in the picture.  That is where the fence should be, sort of...

 The rotten pasts can be leveraged to make the fence straight again.  Posts usually rot right at the base of the post where it sits in the concrete slug.  The rot starts at that line but travels up and down, leaving a weak spot right at the ground level.

Of course the top of the post comes off, but you can dig down into the concrete slug and remove the rotten post there.  In this case the center of the post had composted into dirt.  This leaves a hard footprint to hold a temporary post.  I was was able to dig into it a few inches, but that is enough to hold the bottom end of the post temporarily.   Replacing the floppy, rotten post with a solid post puts the foot of the post in the right place.

 With the bottom end of the fence in line now we get all the posts plumb.  You get the long construction level, go down the line making each post plumb.  This is a little more than just pushing the fence in a repair.  I have been adding support posts, and also using old support posts.  Some of these repair posts are in the wrong place, so I have to shim the bones to fit the fence line.  Then we have a straight fence, and can begin adding new support posts, and repairing broken posts.  

Re-Post

 My back yard fence was first built in 1978 I assume because the house was built in 1978.  I have no evidence of this except the artifacts I dig up in the process of renewing the fence.  And it not like I find dated materials but I find things like soda can pull tabs, and glass coke bottles.  When I was cleaning out the shrubbery in front I found a very old schnaps bottle.  What I am getting to is the tasks that I am doing now.  Replacing rotten fence posts.  In this case I have to excavate the post stump.  I can't get a grip on the post or the slug, so I literally dig the thing up.

 These posts were planted at a 2 foot depth.  The photo above shows the mostly excavated hole with the remainder of the slug at the bottom.  I'm using a two pronged approach where I breaking up the slug with a hard chisel, and then dig around the circumference as needed.  I really don't like to do this because it breaks up the ground around the new slug, but we can work around this.  The post hole I am working on now is between the nursery pots below.

 In order to dig out this one hole I had to disassemble two fence panels.  One was already reworked, and the other is the old fence.  The post in question is the post that joins the two panels.  For this design it is the point where the fence in switching from outer bones to inner bones where east side fence starts.  The fence to the north is the outer facia towards the alley, and the east side faces the neighbors yard.  So I am going to orient the "pretty" part of the fence toward my garden.

 After I have finished excavating all the old post slug I have a post hole that is around 12 inches in diameter and 24 inches deep.  This is a lot bigger than my usual post hole.  So I want to fill up the extra space so that I don't fill such a large hole with concrete.  It is not hard to do, just fill it with concrete.  But I want to make consistent post holes, and slugs just for the design integrity, and also in anticipation of the future.  Some day I may want to dig up this post, and put something else here.  I'm gonna make it easier on my future self an put a reasonably sized slug here.  Part of the resizing the post hole process is filling the bottom of the post hole with gravel.  I want a 18 inch deep post slug.

 Now I have reduced the length of the post hole, and now we need to reduce the diameter of the post hole.  The companies that make concrete also make products to help you use concrete.  So, above is a concrete form which will help me make a nice uniform post slug.  I have reassembled the reworked fence to the north which will hold the new post in this hole.  At this point the post hole is finished, the concrete form is positioned, and the post is positioned.  But in order to pour concrete into the form we have to do one more thing, back fill the post hole.

 The concrete form is cardboard, and relatively light weight.  If I tried to pour concrete directly into it then it would just get knocked over.  I need to hold it in place to pour concrete into it.  So we are going to back fill the remainder of the hole with the clay soil that came out of the hole.  Again, because of the light weight nature of the concrete form, we have to back fill the hole in a uniform, and calculated way.  We want the post slug to be generally coaxial with the post, and keep this in mind when back filling the post hole.  I crumble the clay soil into small pieces to evenly distribute them,  During the fill I do some light packing of the back fill.  But don't pack it too much so as to deform the concrete form.

 The very last step in reworking this post is to add Mr. Concreto...  I like that the concrete form gives the post slug a uniform look.  You can even float the top of the post slug to make it look extra fancy, like it's finished or something...  Just one little note about the old rotten post, I'm trying to prevent that in the future.  After repairing the irrigation leak I think this section will do much better.  But, also, as general rot prevention I have used treated wood that is rated for ground contact and also a surface coating.  The rot starts at the surface, so stop it there...

 Now that the rotten post has been replaced we can put the fence back together so the yard is safe for puppies.  The fence panel on the left has been reworked.  The fence panel on the right in the one that is under construction.  The post I replaced this time was the one that joins these two panels.  Going up the east side of the fence to the right, south, there are several more post slugs that need to be reworked in this manner.  I'm glad this is fun for me, otherwise it might seem like work... 

Moisture and Fence Failure

 I had made note of the excessive rot in the fence panel I am working on now.  In the last post, Repair to Renew I noted of the advanced level of rot in this section.  The bottom runner was rotten.  Well there is usually a reason, and it is here in the same area.  The subterranean sprinkler...

 The riser is threaded onto the supply pipe at an angle.  This is the effect of making assumptions, and making blind connections.  The pop-up head that was in this place malfunctioned years ago.  I don't remember exactly what happened.  It could have been that one of the dogs decided to chew it up, I don't remember. 

I made an assumption that the supply pipe was rigid.  I unscrewed the pop-up head, and then screwed in a riser to make a fixed head.  It must have felt right at the time, and tested OK, but I didn't notice the massive subterranean supply pipe leak.  So, over the years I have noticed a inexplicable flow in that area on the property line, and assumed, again, that it was not my system, LOL!  Hindsight...
 

Repair to Renew

 So in picking the next section of fence to work on I usually go to the worst section first.  The one that needs the most help gets the first attention.  This section was very rotten at the bottom, the pickets, and lowest runner were falling apart.

 This is the East Fence I am working on now, by the garden.  This section has had scrap lumber piled up against it which helped the lower part rot.  I added some support posts in this area a long time ago, then went to work on other areas.  Now those other areas are reworked it is time to fix up this section.  Both of the old posts for this section were rotten as well.  I was able to clean out the post slugs a little to hold a solid Cedar posts temporarily.  I replaced the rotten runner, and put new planks on this section.

 This is an effort to strengthen the fence so that I can use it to hold the new posts when I am ready to set them.  This part is a little backwards.  I am repairing the old fence in order to hold the new posts when I set them.  After the new posts are set then I'll replace all the runners and planks.  Dior is very curious about the new view into the neighbors side yard.  There are critters over there she wants to chew on...

New View

 Now, a week later, I added the Bones, and Planks to the outside.  In this section the new fence is almost complete.  Now we have to deconstruct the old fence on the other side, and then mount the Planks on the backside of the new Bones.

 That sure does look nice considering what a mess it has been for decades.  But now we need to finish the new fence, but the old fence is in the way...

 The fence is double walled at the moment.  The old fence is still attached to the posts.  I deconstruct to control the disposition of materials.  Hardware get thrown in the recycle bucket.  The rotten cedar is just trash, really that bad.  Then I find some not so old lumber, previous repairs, that can be reused.

 What is neat about this part of the process is that as you pull away the old rotted cedar it reveals the fresh new fence behind it.  Its refreshing...

 Eventually all the bad parts are gone, and what is left is a nice fresh fence.  This is the idea of maintain containment so the yard is safe for Doggos, and keeps the Varmints out...

 After the old wood is gone all we have to do is put Planks on the inside of the new Bones.  I think I need to get some Gargoyle Post Caps...

 

Can you Dig It?

 Another post about posts...  Now I am working on the north face of the fence.  I did the complex parts first.  The Gates, and the Corners were the more difficult parts of the project, and well as the parts that broke down the most.  With the gates it is traffic that breaks them down.  The corners on the original fence were kind of feeble, and there were too many fasteners in a post that was not structurally adequate.

The thing that kept the old fence standing was the steel joiners that I added to the fence.  These allowed me to attach all the boards at a joint to the post with multi directional fasteners.  The wind has knocked this fence over many times, and each time I try to find ways to hold it together better.  But, after all the impromptu fixes really what I want is a fence design that is not going to break in the first place.  This starts with posts...

Its kinda of a standard the way posts are used in fences with a post at each end of the panel.  Almost all pre-built fences are like this.  You buy panels, and posts, and then assemble in your yard.  That is great if you property is flat, level, and square.  I live on a slope, and matching the slope requires scratch making panels.  It is just a fence panel right?

So any construction starts with a foundation, Mass, the bigger the better.  But these are fence posts, and I don't want to pour a lake of concrete in my back yard. So what do you do?  How do you make many?  I want to have a uniform shape to my fence post Slugs.  I want significant mass, and compact size.  I have seen foam footing for posts, and I won't do that.  I would make the Slug out of Ultradensium if I could get it.  A lead slug that weights three or four hundred pounds would be great, but it is not practical.  So what is a high density material that is cheap, and plentiful?  That's right it's your old friend Mr. Concreto.

 I have seen all the kinds of WTF? when it comes to Post Slugs.  I quit trying to figure out why they are like they are, and just fix it.  So back to the standard fence design for a moment, posts at each end of the panel.  So the panels are sharing posts.  There are two panel ends on each fence post.  So each end of the panel is really only getting half a post, and if you add both sides then you have one post per panel, plus one post at the end of the line.  OK, for aesthetics that gets an A+, but for strength if fails hard, like flat on the ground.

There is a physical weight that is supported by the fence like the runners, pickets, and hardware.  But that weight is small compared to the force exerted by the wind.  A fence is subject to forces that are similar to a Sailboat.  The wind is pushing sideways on the fence, with dynamic vectors.  This exerts force on the fence, and if you want to fence to stand, it has to resist this force.  With a Sailboat your resistance to the force of the wind is the Keel.  Likewise for the Fence its resistance to the force of the wind is the Post Slug.

 We have a measure of mass with each post.  The easiest way to add more measures of mass is to add more posts.  So, first, lets just double the mass, two posts.  But, also make the posts a superior material.  I wish I had a way to simply calculate the increase in strength.  Its also impractical to test it.  But I think I can say this will significantly increase the strength of each panel.

But, no, I want it stronger.  The answer is already there.  Increase the mass, add more posts.  So, on the North Side of the Fence I have four existing, and in good condition, posts that I am going to bind into this run of panels.  This adds one more post to each panel, and joins the panels together at the ends.

 In this process of restoration I am going for sort of an OEM Plus upgrade.  I want an contemporary six foot wooden fence, but constructed with advanced materials, coatings, and hardware.  The idea is to make it look like it did in 1978, but made out of 21st century materials...

In the shot above I am setting the posts.  The grey old fence is cross braced, and supported in the correct position.  I am using the old fence to hold the new posts in position while Mr. Concreto cures.  Setting posts is a task, and I am usually really tired after doing that.  The posts will have a few days to setup before I attach the new dog boards, and runners.

 While Mr. Concreto is curing I am converting other panels from a closed fence to the Shadowbox Fence design.  This is the west side of the fence, by the driveway.  These were the first couple panels I built back in July with the closed panel design.  It was after that set when I decided to go with the Shadowbox Design, so now I have converted those panels.  Something neat about the Shadowbox Design is that you can see though the fence a little at acute angles.  It is an interesting feature.  There is depth to the fence, and you can see further a little.  It plays with your eyes.  Your peripheral vision sees the fence change as you walk past it.