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I always squared posts with a level until a storm proved me wrong
Been putting up fences for about 15 years now, mostly around here in rural Ohio. For the longest time I'd use my 4-foot level to make sure each post was perfectly plumb, checking both sides before backfilling. Then last spring a big windstorm came through and three sections of a job I did six months earlier were leaning like they were tired. I went back to check and realized the ground had shifted under the posts because I wasn't paying attention to the soil type. Turns out for clay-heavy dirt like we have, you need to dig a wider hole and use gravel at the bottom for drainage, otherwise the posts settle unevenly over time. A oldtimer driving by stopped and pointed out my mistake, said I was leveling to the ground's surface instead of the bedrock below. Now I always test the soil first and adjust my method. Has anyone else run into that issue with clay soil shifting their posts?
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hart.sage4mo ago
Asked my buddy about this and @joel_hall17 nailed it with the frost heave warning.
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amy9744mo ago
My cousin out in Kansas had something similar happen, but his issue was with freezing ground instead of just settling. He started putting a couple inches of crushed stone around the base of the post for drainage, not just at the bottom, and that stopped the frost from pushing them out of plumb over winter. It's one of those things you don't learn from a level, you learn from watching how dirt behaves in different weather. Good on that oldtimer for setting you straight before you had to redo more of them.
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joel_hall174mo ago
@amy974 I get what you're saying, but is frost heave really that big a deal for a simple fence post?
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