Durable fencing timbers? Do they exist anymore..

[Tom D]

Could have been, I don’t remember them being octagonal.. but they might have been..

[Matthew Storrs]

58 minutes ago, Rough Hewn said:

Quartered split chestnut has less sapwood and 10" top strainers are great.
It's all about the seasoning with sweet chestnut.
It's got to be fully air dried or it will start to rot as soon as it hits the mud.
Fully seasoned strainers last decades and 4" quarters are good for 20+ years before they rot at ground level.
Even in heavy clay soil.

That’s interesting, I buy to order so generally the posts get used as soon as they come in- fairly sure they’re freshly coppiced more or less.

perhaps id be better buying and leaving in the yard a year off the ground- they’d lose their ‘new’ look which my customers may question but If it makes for a better product....

 

trouble is I order specifically for the jobs I have lined up so hard to order a year in advance..

 

should add all the Chestnut is winter cut apparently, which I believe helps ?

Edited October 18, 2018 by Matthew Storrs

[se7enthdevil]

2 hours ago, Matthew Storrs said:

All well and good but not sure where I’d find the kind of quantities I’m after of Robinia. Although it does sound perfect, 

but never heard of it being used as fencing stakes round here- barely see a Robinia unless it’s in someone’s garden...

unless you want to make it all yourself just contact these people and see if they can supply you?

http://www.aatimber.co.uk/

 

 

[Coletti]

There’s a company importing proper creosoted posts from Sweden, I saw them at the highland show a couple of years ago , can’t remember the name. It’s the real deal, it was Health and safety that shut down all our creosote plants but this Swedish one is state of the art apparently and uses the proper old school stuff. Boiled and pressure treated.  Those old posts can last 50 years +

There's a couple of companies in the UK still doing it this way with proper creo, one of those being Calder and grandidge so no need to buy imported when you can buy british

[Woodworks]

9 hours ago, Matthew Storrs said:

That’s interesting, I buy to order so generally the posts get used as soon as they come in- fairly sure they’re freshly coppiced more or less.

perhaps id be better buying and leaving in the yard a year off the ground- they’d lose their ‘new’ look which my customers may question but If it makes for a better product....

 

trouble is I order specifically for the jobs I have lined up so hard to order a year in advance..

 

should add all the Chestnut is winter cut apparently, which I believe helps ?

Even winter cut is still pretty wet. Had some chestnut off Jon and it took two years to get it dry enough for logs and that was winter cut I think. Plenty of empty lorries coming back from Kent these days so maybe buy some chestnut in and make some post yourself and leave them to season?

[Big J]

Lawson's cypress. Very strong, dense and super durable. Available in large quantities in the UK and is usually cheap as most sawmills don't know what to do with it. Often planted alongside or in western red cedar stands (much to my previous annoyance, as there would nearly always be some LC in with WRC loads). 

 

I hated milling it when I had the sawmill as it's brick hard and very heavy, even when dry. I'd strongly recommend considering it for fence posts. 

[drinksloe]

I'd just find a decent sawmill producing decent posts, while the treatments may have changed probably the biggest problem is most sawmills will be treating timber that was only recently felled so its never going to take much treatment in.

I've put plenty fences up 20 years ago that are still standing and mainly just with soft wood rather than larch posts

 

A couple of old fashioned mills near me have big drying yards where the cut timber is stored under old tarps to let it dry before treatment.

They also only peel there posts rather than machine round, i also like the look of peeled posts rather than machine rounds and reckon that outer layer helps to keep water out.

But can honestly say never had a problem with posts rotting in such a short time.

 

Another handy thing if u can do it is putting a single strand of eleccy on the fence, often the posts snapping is caused by beasts rubbing/scratching on the posts or tring to graze in the next field.

U don't get tht when ur top wire is leccy

 

Burning on stuff or treating every post before it goes in the ground is not really vaible if ur fencing commercially

 

 

Was in a sawmill 1 day years ago (not the good 1's, estate only had an account there) and the rep and owner where on about this, rep was trying to claim that these big modern heavy post knockers where 'altering' the tinbers cell structure causing them to rot

[Woodworks]

Matt is it worth having a chat with Jeremy at Bowerish sawmills? 

[Commando]

Following on from Eddie’s earlier comments, anyone else had any experience using the Postsaver sleeves option on fence posts. Thx Craig