If part of your fence is on a lean, don't worry.
I'll show you an easy fix you can do yourself
that'll get your fence nice and straight again.
Now there's a few different reasons
as to why your fence might be leaning over.
Either the post has broken off below grand level,
your footings are too shallow, or one
of the most common reasons for a leaning fence
is that a tree has grown up on the outside of the fence, which
has forced it over, which is exactly what's happened
in this situation.
So to fix it, I'm going to replace the old post
with a new one.
Now before I cut out the post, what I'm going to do
is actually support the fence.
I've just cut a couple of bits of 3x2 here,
and I'm going to screw that to our fence.
That's going to support it when we actually remove the post.
Now a great little tip is using these 10-gage TEK screws.
The good thing about these--
you can just use them over and over again.
So we actually just want to screw
in to each one of our rails.
Now just to make sure this is nice and firm,
I'm just going to screw up brace to our prop.
So we're just going to smack a pig down next to our prop
and attach another TEK screw.
Lovely, this-- nice and strong.
So you want to do exactly the same
on the other side of the post.
Now just before we remove our post, what I want to do
is just take a little bit of that topsoil off
so it'll expose the top of the concrete.
Removing some of the topsoil will make it easier
for me to remove the post.
Now one of my favorite tools of all time, the mighty sabre saw.
This thing, here, absolutely loves to eat nails,
so what we're going to use it for is
to cut these nails from where the rails go into the post.
[GRINDING]
Righty-o.
Now we just need to try and roll out our post.
Righty-o.
Now that the post is out, time for the hard work--
is removing the rest of the concrete.
OK, the next thing we want to do is square that hole up.
And then we just want to remove all the rubbish out
of the hole.
Now as you can see, down the hole here,
we've got part of the root system
that was responsible for pushing this fence over
in the first place.
So we want to get rid of that and then just continue
cleaning our hole out.
Now just before we put our post in,
I want to make sure that our hole is deep enough.
So I'm about 450 deep, which is around
about the minimum you want to be for a post hole.
Now because that I've hit solid volcanic rock down there,
I've actually just gone a little bit wide on my hole.
The minimum you want to be is about 300 square,
so I've actually gone about 450 square just
to make sure there's enough volume of concrete
around that post.
Now I've just attached a 4x2 to the bottom of my existing fence
post.
That's just going to give me a nice straight line.
You can use a string liner all the way, if you like.
But that way, by me using that, I
can easily just fix straight through that with another TEK
screw.
And that's going to hold the bottom
of the post nice and straight.
OK, now it's time for us to put our brace on,
and then we can put our concrete in.
Righty-o.
Now that our post is in, fixed and securely to the bottom,
we just want to make sure that that's plumb.
OK, that's looking pretty good, so the next thing we want to do
is just make sure that our existing fence is also plumb.
Plan Now to do that, I'm going to have
to release the screws on our braces
because we screwed that off when the fence was out of plumb.
So we'll take the screws out and push that back over
into the right position.
Now I've set our rail 30 millimeters back
from the front face of our post because that's
exactly what they are on the rest of the posts.
Now just before we attach our rails to our post,
I've put a level on our rails just
to make sure that our existing fence is sitting
nice and level, which it is.
So now I'm ready to attach the rails.
Now I've pre-drilled a couple of holes at 45 degrees.
That way, the timber's not going to split
when I put the screws in.
So you want to put in at least four screws per rail.
Now that our rails are attached to our post, time
to put back in our screw and our brace.
Beauty-- now time to throw some concrete in that hole.
[SLOSHING]
OK, this is looking pretty good.
Now what we want to do is just let that sit for 24 hours.
Righty-o.
I've let the concrete sit for at least 24 hours
and I've chopped the top off the same height as all the rest.
The last thing I have to do is remove my braces.
So there we have it-- we've fixed our leaning fence.
Now that's going to last a good while longer.