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Long lasting softwood fence posts

Hilly

Member
they shouldn't be 'dipped'.
The ones we're using are -as I understand, pressure treated in the same manner as the tanalising...only with a tank of creo instead of green p*ss
Most of it seems to be welsh grown larch/DF I'd guess (has evident heartwood, knot whorls too small to be pine...maybe)
Stakes cut in half should have deep penetration.

Timber quality is another matter, and i'm happy to go there if you've got a day or two to spare.....
If going to the lenght of preserving something it has to be worth preserving home grown softwood is not imo.
 

Pond digger

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
East Yorkshire
Have you tried claiming?

Any damage to the wood voids the guarantee.... That includes putting in a staple :banghead:

:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:, so unless you leave em in the shed........

No, I’ve never tried to claim against a guarantee. The last I bought came from Jackson’s Fencing, They have a 25yr guarantee, but you have to register. The posts have full treatment penetration, and are as green in the middle as they are on the outside.
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
If going to the lenght of preserving something it has to be worth preserving home grown softwood is not imo.


It's too big a subject to cover in one response, but consider this.

I'm reusing 50 year old UK grown stakes, grown really fast. The treatment was obviously good, and likely the processes were followed better.
(felled sap down, peeled promptly, dried off the deck, vacuumed to spec, etc etc)
They were out of really fast grown thinnings - too small to have any appreciable heartwood.
It certainly can be done.

Equally, I've seen imported stakes from somewhere with very 'poor' growing conditions - or maybe it was the silviculture- which had circa 70 years of annual rings*.
That growth rate is not going to be profitable to anyone 'managing woodland (unless we're going to be paying £20/stake) which means these almost certainly had to be coming from primal unworked woodland ....to make our fence posts??????
That doesn't sound very sustainable to me.
*It just might have been very careful silviculture, although I think that highly unlikely.

It's a big subject, and I can understand why you hold the views you might, but it's not as black and white as all that.
 

Hilly

Member
It's too big a subject to cover in one response, but consider this.

I'm reusing 50 year old UK grown stakes, grown really fast. The treatment was obviously good, and likely the processes were followed better.
(felled sap down, peeled promptly, dried off the deck, vacuumed to spec, etc etc)
They were out of really fast grown thinnings - too small to have any appreciable heartwood.
It certainly can be done.

Equally, I've seen imported stakes from somewhere with very 'poor' growing conditions - or maybe it was the silviculture- which had circa 70 years of annual rings*.
That growth rate is not going to be profitable to anyone 'managing woodland (unless we're going to be paying £20/stake) which means these almost certainly had to be coming from primal unworked woodland ....to make our fence posts??????
That doesn't sound very sustainable to me.
*It just might have been very careful silviculture, although I think that highly unlikely.

It's a big subject, and I can understand why you hold the views you might, but it's not as black and white as all that.
Maybe not but the simple answer not to buy the crap we are offerd, then perhaps suppliers will take a think, if folk keep buying t they will keep selling it , if we need quality we need to demand it not just keep buying it and get bumped with inferior products hence metal concrete plastic will be my choice in future for as many things as possible.
 
It's too big a subject to cover in one response, but consider this.

I'm reusing 50 year old UK grown stakes, grown really fast. The treatment was obviously good, and likely the processes were followed better.
(felled sap down, peeled promptly, dried off the deck, vacuumed to spec, etc etc)
They were out of really fast grown thinnings - too small to have any appreciable heartwood.
It certainly can be done.

Equally, I've seen imported stakes from somewhere with very 'poor' growing conditions - or maybe it was the silviculture- which had circa 70 years of annual rings*.
That growth rate is not going to be profitable to anyone 'managing woodland (unless we're going to be paying £20/stake) which means these almost certainly had to be coming from primal unworked woodland ....to make our fence posts??????
That doesn't sound very sustainable to me.

*It just might have been very careful silviculture, although I think that highly unlikely.

It's a big subject, and I can understand why you hold the views you might, but it's not as black and white as all that.

Quite frankly it would be more enviromentally friendly to put some arsenic back in
 

Pond digger

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
East Yorkshire
Maybe not but the simple answer not to buy the crap we are offerd, then perhaps suppliers will take a think, if folk keep buying t they will keep selling it , if we need quality we need to demand it not just keep buying it and get bumped with inferior products hence metal concrete plastic will be my choice in future for as many things as possible.

Of course there's nothing new about metal fencing. I remember back in the 80's, our ploughman cutting open a rear tyre on the new MF2640, he'd gone over an angle iron stake that had rotted off at ground level.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Give honey street sawmills a call they do creosoted posts of all sizes and shapes, put some in nearly ten years ago and some are still ozzing the creosote out,bit dearer but worth every penny

Honey Street were very good. Unfortunately they sold the business a few years ago and it has closed down.
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
Leylandii cut them down cut them to length cut a point on one end and drive them in
simples

heartwood should be reasonably durable...sapwood won't.
There does seem to be a lot of variation in what is presumed leylandii, but then, it's a hybrid so I suppose it's to be expected.
 

nails

Member
Location
East Dorset
Cleft oak is the way to go, got some cleft oak piles still standing after 40 years. Sweet Chestnut is good, but i think there is some new disease hitting it now so it might become very short.
 

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Webinar: Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer 2024 -26th Sept

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On Thursday 26th September, we’re holding a webinar for farmers to go through the guidance, actions and detail for the expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer. This was planned for end of May, but had to be delayed due to the general election. We apologise about that.

Farming and Countryside Programme Director, Janet Hughes will be joined by policy leads working on SFI, and colleagues from the Rural Payment Agency and Catchment Sensitive Farming.

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