Treating Wood Fence Posts - The old Timers Way

alright guys in this video what I want to show you is a way the old timers used to treat wood especially the farmers and you know they had like hundreds of fence posts to put up actually there was a couple ways I used to do it one way is to cut their Timbers char the end with you know burn the ends up a little bit so they get nice and dark about the part that's going into the ground and put that into the ground and that would actually treat to keep the bugs out and stuff like that another way is they used to use old motor oil and diesel fuel a 50/50 mix and that's what we're going to do just get yourself a 50/50 mix of motor oil and diesel fuel what we're going to do is just going to paint it on okay let that soak in for I don't know a day or two it'll it'll it will pretty much be dry to the touch and then what we're going to do as an added protection we're going to paint the end that's going into the ground with the Asheville okay you can pick that up at any big-box store I got this here gallons worth it's a roof coating and it's a asphalt base make sure you read that as asphalt base they have aluminum stuff and although you know different kinds of stuff but this one is an asphalt base so it's basically ash Baltar um do the part that's going into the ground plus an extra six inches or so it's sticking up out of the ground because the part that's really at the ground level is a part that really rots the most and the bugs get to the most so and another key is don't do the very very bottom of the of your post do it with oil you know put the oil on there but don't put the tar because what happens is if I were to do this all in tar and the bottom and after it dries I'm essentially creating a cup so water will eventually seep through and under the tar and stay in there there's no way to for it to get out so you leave the bottom you treat it with oil but you don't treat it with the tar okay and as far as cementing I personally wouldn't cement posts into the ground because you're just looking for them to rot again what you're creating is a cup what you're doing is you're putting this post in a concrete cup so water's going to seep through there and it's going to stay in there it's got nowhere to go and it's going to rot if you think you have to use concrete for whatever reason what I would do is dig your hole put your post in there put I don't know maybe three four inches of dirt and then put your concrete in okay this way what you're doing you're still getting the stability and a bigger diameter because of the concrete but when the water does seep in it'll be able to drain out the bottom okay they'll come out and they'll drain into the soil it won't get trapped in there okay so if you have to use concrete just make sure like I said put put it in the ground fill it maybe you know two three inches four inches of dirt then put your concrete in and that way your water be able to get out and escape all right so essentially what we're going to do here is just paint it on okay and this post right now is treated wood and it's treated for ground so I wanted the most protection possible okay so what I did is bought my posts and you know when you go by post at those big box stores are usually wet still so I let them dry my garage for a few days and so now they're ready if they're really wet I wouldn't do this I'd wait till it dries out a little bit that way the oil was soaked in butter and that's really pretty much all there is to it like I said the old timers used to do this there's posts out there that are 100 years old that are covered that were covered in oil or tar and you're still standing today I've here a guy's doing their fence in their yard with engine oil and diesel fuel and 25 years later and their fence is still standing okay I had a where I used to live in Houston I had a fence and it lasted me oh my goodness see 2004 it was put up and I think about six years later I had to replace the whole fence so I'd rather replace it every 20-some years and every six and make sure you get the ends and you soak that really good and of course when you do this make sure you're wearing clothes that you won't care about in shoes and I'm wearing these work boots here and this oil dripping on them but you know what that's even better for the leather now for all you that think that the world is going to end because you're going to I'm going to contaminate the ground and all that stuff no you're not this does not contaminate the ground if I were to pour this onto the ground maybe yeah but this is soaking into the wood people been doing this for years and years of course check your local laws if you can't do it don't do it you know I treated my fence where I slip in Houston with the water seal your typical big brand only one I'm mentioning water seal stuff that you put in your pump sprayer and whatever dripped on the ground killed all my grass all around the fence which was great in my favor because I don't have to cut weeds there but that is contaminating the ground if I were to pour this on the on the ground on open grass most likely when it wouldn't die right away it'd be less contaminating than those water seals you buy at the big-box stores this is a natural product okay honestly you pour this under a weed or whatever it will kill the weed in time and within probably less than a year the bacteria in the ground will eat this stuff up and convert it into fertilizer okay so if anything I'm reusing oil repurposing I guess you want to call it and doing something with it and and now I'm not contaminating the ground at all think about what our roads made out of these are made out of concrete or asphalt and what is asphalt a petroleum product okay all right looks like we got this one done I'm going to set this into dry and we'll just continue on all right guys I'll let these dry out for a day I'm ready to put tar on the ends so I got this Henry's roof coating it's an asphalt base so the first thing you got to do is you got to stir it and it's a it's pretty thick stuff the the thicker stuff lays on the bottom and the liquidy is more on top so you got to mix it really good if you're going to use a paint stick like I'm using got to be careful because you could break the paint paint stick so what I do is I kind of like shove it down in there and lift it up and kind of push it around like that but just be careful you don't break the stick in there but you'll be digging it out and I'll show you what the consistency looks like and that's what it looks like it's pretty thick stuff alright alright so now after this is good and stirred is he try not to make a mess so get yourself an old brush wipe off what you can alright now what we need to do is figure out how much of its going into the ground plus an extra four to six inches so on my posts here I know my auger is going to go down at least three feet so I'm going to measure three feet plus I'm not going extra six inches I just get a sharpie and market there alright now just start gooping it on and like I said earlier don't put any on the very bottom the very bottom of the post here because of it doesn't I don't care how much you quote this thing water eventually is going to seep through there but the key is the waters got to get out so it's got a place to get out at the bottom this stuff is extremely thick and it really sticks well alright guys so after you finish up doing all four sides put them somewhere or they don't touch nothing of course maybe put some cardboard underneath rest up and lean them up against something and let them dry for a couple days till they're not you know sticky to the touch anymore this stuff should dry up and then you're ready to put them in the ground and if you do put them in the ground I would suggest in your hole at the bottom of the hole put a little bit of gravel put your posts in and then fill it in with limestone or or the you know the dirt you took out would be good enough for for a fence post now since I'm not using concrete I'm not going to be sticking it in two feet okay it's going to go on at least three feet if not more okay guys I think that's about it I hope you learned something because I sure did I didn't know none of this stuff I just doing a lot of research online and I started you know I started thinking all these fence posts a you know a only last five six seven eight years and they rot and it's because they put them in a concrete something how did the old-timers do it you know so I started reading doing some research and this is it and they got fence posts some of these farms that are over a hundred years old you know these guys out on the out in the farms and now in the country been doing this a long time and most of us you know we go to these big box stores they buy these name-brand water sealants and and they don't last very long kind of like throwing your money away alright so guys thanks for watching please like and subscribe and I would greatly appreciate it thank you you

Channel: Pete B: East Texas Homesteading

Views: 573,173

Keywords: setting fence posts, installing wooden fence posts, fence posts without concrete, treating fence posts, leveling fence posts, fence posts, fence post, treating wood, motor oil wood stain, wood, fencing, fence, weatherproofing fences

Id: yd0nDUYHi3U

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 08 2016