Stretching a fence North vs south

Didn't want to hijack Blue's post with this question. Is there a difference between the way corner posts are set and wire is stretched in the North where we freeze deep compared to the south where the ground doesn't freeze and it doesn't get as cold. In Iowa we have problems with the corner post lifting over time and the wire contracting and stretching in extreme cold. Snow load doesn't do it any good either. Do corner posts need to be set as deep in the south as we do in the north? Do corner posts heave in the south the way they do in the north? Or isn't there a difference? A neighbor used to set corner posts forty inches deep with a couple of boards nailed to the side at the bottom of the post. They were a bugger to pull back out but they stayed down. Jim

Not that i am and expert fence builder but i think the one neighbor has a handle on end posts He uses locus debarked and dried and they are usually 8-10 in. and 10 feet long .He drills a hole as deep as he can get the posthole auger down then sets the post in the hole then he puts the hyd driver to work and drive it till it will not go any more then he stuffs in rocks and hand tamps them along with clay when that is done they get double braced . Now not saying this is the way to do it but they do not move nomatter what . Years back some kid with a vett lost it popping over the little hump in the road and hit the one end post setting back a good ten feet off the road and that vett never moved the post it just wrapped the ft. end around it and hugged it even with two wreckers pulling on the vett trying to get it off the post it never phased it . Oh yea the kid lived .

I dunno how many folks you are going to run into that have set posts in both north and south. I set 8" corners 48" deep with one sack of Redi-mix in the bottom. Let the concrete set up then ram soil around the rest of the way. I generally use double braces but for short runs of a couple hundred feet have used single braces. Those posts are rock solid after a few years of use. No heaving or leaning. Just had a big oak fall across one of the braces. Broke the cross brace and flattened the fence but none of the posts moved at all. People tell me I build a pretty good fence.

Here in the cold...only time I've seen trouble is when posts is set in a very high water table. Swamps mostly. They'll even push out steel T-posts. 50 miles NE of Fargo.

never lived in the south, but in the north you
HAVE to be below the frost line - that exact depth
changes with location.

But either way - even without frost, you should go
as deep as you can anyways to keep it from leaning
over time.

Depends on the fence of course - but a high
tensile fence over 10 years is going to slowly
pull the corners in unless they're planted deep.

Pacific Northwest is probably more like the south- we never get any frost heave. It may freeze down 3 or 4 inches once in a great while, but that seems to have no effect, as it thaws right out when the weather warms up. I've built fences all my life, and we put the posts down 2 feet, tamp good with dirt, and call it good. Use a little huskier posts for the corners, maybe use crushed rock instead of dirt, but same depth. Same with T posts- drive them down until the spade is covered. Posts will rot off before they loosen up or move.

(quoted from post at 15:04:39 02/24/14) never lived in the south, but in the north you
HAVE to be below the frost line - that exact depth
changes with location.

But either way - even without frost, you should go
as deep as you can anyways to keep it from leaning
over time.

Depends on the fence of course - but a high
tensile fence over 10 years is going to slowly
pull the corners in unless they're planted deep.

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In Tx dry and heat the ground cracks away from the posts. I would guess that is the same end result as freezing and thawing. Any way DO NOT tie your brace wire to the back post, tie it to a dead man. I use a large auger. If you tie it to post it is still pulling on fence. When you tie it to a dead man then the load isn't pulling on the fence.

Posts here move always. If you don't have springs in high tension
ones they pull the corners or gates out. The ground has a lot of
clay and heave and the temp varies. Frost goes below practical
depth to place posts. The places that have nice fences repair them
annually.

On the other hand, East of the Cascades, the ground freezes almost every year. I like to try to use railroad ties for corner posts and put them as deep as I can--I prefer at least 3 feet. And then I brace corners with steel pipe.

Much of my ground is quite rocky, and a real pain to try to dig. I mostly use T posts these days and pound them in until I can no longer see the spade and that seems to work just fine. I try to pound posts soon after the frost is out of the ground, since they go in the easiest at that time. A few places where I have wanted to fence had almost no soil to anchor a post in, so I have built up rock piles around the posts, and in a few spots, have filled steel barrels with rocks and tied a post to the barrel. Not pretty, but it will hold up a fence for as long as I care about. Lord knows I have plenty of rocks!

I hope to do some fencing this Spring, if something else doesn"t get in the way. Digging post holes right now would be really tough, as the ground is frozen--I don"t know how far down, but at least a foot or two. It is almost like concrete. Maybe with a fair sized backhoe, but it would take all day to dig one post hole by hand. No thanks, I"ll wait for warmer weather!

I've done all of my fencing here on the farm in
high tensile. At first, I used the springs, but
haven't in twenty years or so. The first pastures
I put in had springs, but I quit using them
because the original ones were there to tell us
how tight the other strands of the fence were for
comparison. Now, I just snug them up to keep them
somewhat tight. The cows have discovered that the
charger I have is a hi impedance unit and really
don't want to mess with the fence because it will
bite them good.

Built a lot of fences. The best corner is like this, but even the H should be twice as long as the fence is high. The brace wire goes from the bottom of the corner post up to the line post. 3' deep if you can, but here in the rocks we go 2', and cement in if we can only get 18". More photos if needed. E-mail is open.

I have never built a fence in the south, but would never set an end post less than 4' deep. Here in the central Midwest I always set my end post 5' - 6' deep. That's the way Dad always did and I do too. I will say one other thing and I will get a lot of criticism about this. Set them in the dark of the moon if you want them to stay in the ground. I have set post both in the light and the dark of the moon and there is a noticeable difference, believe it or not.

Corners pull out of the ground here too, even concreted in,
post, concrete and all will come out of the ground in a wet
winter or spring due to fence tension. For several years I have
built steel pipe corners with three posts and braces on each
side of the 90, four feet deep and concreted and they do not pull
up.

When I'm going through the mountains along I80 in Wyoming I see fence posts sticking out of the rocks. How do they get them down in the rock? There's thousands of them so there must be an easy way. Jim

(quoted from post at 21:07:08 02/24/14) When I'm going through the mountains along I80 in Wyoming I see fence posts sticking out of the rocks. How do they get them down in the rock? There's thousands of them so there must be an easy way. Jim

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And in Kansas I see fence posts made of rock.

(quoted from post at 19:28:09 02/24/14) Corners pull out of the ground here too, even concreted in,
post, concrete and all will come out of the ground in a wet
winter or spring due to fence tension. For several years I have
built steel pipe corners with three posts and braces on each
side of the 90, four feet deep and concreted and they do not pull
up.

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With this drawing I think I will apply for an engineering job.

You mean those limestone posts? I've seen them too, in the middle of Kansas. Jim

Here in the Arkansas Ozarks how a corner is made depends on the terrain. When possible I make an H braced corner with an X brace wire. I set the posts 3' if possible. We have a lot of rock so sometimes 2' is as deep as we can go. I also have some rock posts like the Kansas boys.

Jim, Here in Texas, Freeze/Thaw jacking post out of the ground IS Not a Problem at all! But the Core principal of keeping a fence tight does not change simply by being South of the Mason/Dixon Line!
There IS No Substitute for Corner Post "Depth in Ground" I had a hard teacher...My Dad! Who was a Rural Electric Lineman in his younger days. So his Techniques were passed to me, he borrowed from setting Electric high-line poles!!
Our Corners were set a "minimum" of 4 feet deep in out hard Rocky, Calachie, layer rock areas. With the bottom of the hole belled out...like a side view of a Bell! I have been as deep as 6 to 7ft deep!
Handed Tamped in, in 3 to 5in layer increments till the entire hole was hand tamped to the top of the ground,....No rocks added AT ALL!
We used Double H brace corners on most of our runs since we were covering a lot of distance most of the time, On runs longer than 1000 feet, shorter ones were single H corners!
As a kid Dad bought a Ton of Used R.R. Ties mostly circa of 1935/36. So our Corner Post of Choice were R.R. Ties for many yrs. Not till the last 15 yrs or so have I converted to Steel pipe, Welded Corners.
Wire, is always American wire, NO Gaucho crap.
12gauge barbed wire or Net wire!!
WE have been pulling wire with a tractor since 1973. There is NO substitute for tension!
I have personally pulled 7, 330ft rolls of Net wire in 1 Pull with a tractor. Close to 2200ft. Pulled out over 40 feet of slack, I needed All my hunters That week end to help make sure the wire didn't hang up on a root stob or sapling, and get it Lifted up into it upright position! That pull was Tough!
In the future I will stick to a max of 4 to 5 rolls.
I personally see no real difference from south to North except taking into account the Freeze jacking aspect and not to over tension so winter contraction doesn't break the wire.
We are all steel now, No wood post at all! We do Tie/Clip every Wire/Every Post. No Exceptions!
My Thoughts, Hope this helps'
Later,
John A.

(quoted from post at 13:22:46 02/24/14) Posts here move always. If you don't have springs in high tension
ones they pull the corners or gates out. The ground has a lot of
clay and heave and the temp varies. Frost goes below practical
depth to place posts. The places that have nice fences repair them
annually.

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Same here. Fence is an ongoing maintenance issue that never, ever ends. Every spring when the ground thaws and soften will find me out driving posts that heaved, rebuilding corners, replacing damaged sections. There is no one I know of in my area that is able to avoid it. People on deep ground that don't have to contend with ledge, clay, water and frost 4-5 feet in the ground simply aren't going to understand it. Some fence is made up of "X" shaped posts, 2 post joined at the top and the wire attached to one leg, just because there's no way to keep a post standing in 6-8" of dirt. You see a lot of this over in Ontario just north of me.

I got kicked off a sheep forum because the moderator couldn't fathom that anywhere else was different than her backyard and that fence upkeep was an annual event. The woman called me a liar and it got nasty.