Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Fence posts in wet location?

I'm considering fencing in part of my yard, the lower part of which is wetlands. As I near the wetlands...say, twelve feet away... the water table seems to be a foot or so below the surface. I'd rather not fence in only the area that has a lower water table, as I'd miss out on too much area that I want to enclose.

I know there's cement that gets put in a hole dry, to have water added on top. But does anyone know of solutions that work in very wet areas? Such as the above cement in a sonotube that is coated to stop water infiltration or regular cement in a sonotube wrapped in a plastic bag?

Of course, cement may not even be the way to go, but as the ground gets fairly soft around there, I'm assuming a hole filled with stone just won't do it over the long haul...

10 years ago when I bought my house, I had an area in the back yard that would get soggy with standing water whenever it rained really hard.

There used to be a store nearby called Earl Mae, but they've sense closed down. They sold a product that you put in a garden hose end sprayer and you wet down the soggy area with this and it contained some sort of biological stuff that would drill down and change the soil so that it would drain.

This worked really good. About 8 years later, I started having standing water again, but not as bad. I've searched the internet looking for this product but it doesn't seem to exist anymore.

Edit: I was sort of hoping someone would say "I know what that is, it's....."

Problem is, the water isn't coming from above, but up from the ground.

I googled this one.

http://www.forums.woodnet.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=4821218&page=&view=&sb=5

Seems to be a lot of conflicting advice though. Some people advise against setting posts in concrete when there's a water table nearby. Others say they've done it and their posts have lasted for years and years.

While not exactly the same, I have see telephone poles in extremely wet areas buried into the ground as usual but with another pole bolted to it horizontally along ground level. Guy wire(s) to a solid location on the 90 degree axis do the rest. In an area where it needs to remain a bit more picturesque, they will bury the attached horizontal pole just under the surface so it is not seen.

I suspect you don't need, nor would you want, guy wires, but burying some horizontal timber attached to the fence posts might help it from sinking or tipping. You could even use two in an X pattern. That might be overkill though as the structural integrity of the fence itself would prevent any lean along the axis parallel to the fence.

As long as you have adjacent support from the fence, you might be able to use bolted U-channels on top of the concrete/sono tubes such as is common in decking. This'll keep the fence posts above the watertable but support for the fence might be an issue unless it's in a corner area.

use the new fabricated plastic fencing.

But will the cement set in the wet ground?

Mark I found this thread about somebody inquiring the pouring of concrete under water and pouring footers in wetlands, it might either help you with your quest to get the proper footing for the fence post or it may lead you on to another thread regarding the information you are looking for.

Engineering Tips

I'm quite sure there are types of cement for wet ground or even underwater....think marina docks, bridges ect. Cement is actually a chemical reaction between it's ingredients, I don't think the fact that it happens underwater changes that. Within a sono-tube, you'd probably force the standing water out of the tube when you pour the cement in, wouldn't you?

Example of Marine Application.

As a sidenote...there has been considerable construction on a major highway extension nearby as well as a lot of work on the exiting roads. One of the main exits runs alongside a very swampy area so they shored up the ground for the road by augering 50+ holes into the ground about 3 ft diameter perhaps 50 ft deep then placing tubes in and filling them with cement. They also added some kind of metal, corragated sleeves to it...one side remains swampy, the other dry.

What I'm trying to say, Mark, is you should drill some 3 ft diameter holes by 50 ft deep in your back yard, then fill them with cement.

Yea you might want to get the 'extra long' post hole digger handle extensions.

You use accelerators and mix it hoter'n hell. It's done all the time. We're just taking about a fence post, so don't get too carried away by comments made by engineers. you could also get some 2" PVC and drive it in.

Mike, I'm sorry to sound dense, but what do you mean re: the 2" PVC? As an outer sleeve of sorts?

Hey, leave the denseness to me.

Share the love densnicity.

Hey, wasn't "densnicity" the name of..........

Wait never mind. I can't let myself finally fall into that trap.

Sorry about that. Been busy lately. I just meant to drive some PVC pipe into the ground and use that for your post in the wet locations. 2” or larger. Probably 3” now that I think about it some more. You can screw or mount fencing to it just fine. If you get schedule 80, it drives into soft dirt fairly easy with a pole driver. A pole driver is basically a chunk of heavy black pipe with handles on the sides and capped at the top. You just set it over the post, lift, drop, over and over again till the post is driven as far down as you need or you can’t drive it any further. Great thing about PVC, is you can bend it later if goes down crooked. Just use a weed burner to heat it (don’t get too close or you’ll burn the pipe), then you just carefully bend it. I can give you a more detailed explanation than that if you go down this road……

UH-OH!! Stewie and a weed burner.

That sounds like a good combo

I don't know what you're talking about, but I bet CV doesn't have the wedding ring to prove it.

PVC tubing is a great Idea. I used some 1.5" tubing as a temporary fence to keep my parents dog off the grass when I have him for extended periods. I just dug a 12" peice of 2" tubing into the ground as sleeves and then drop the 1.5" posts into them. I then zip tied some plastic fencing material to the posts. When I no longer needed the fence I simply pulled the posts out of the sleeves and rolled it up for use the next time they drop the dog off. I had some rubber caps that covered the sleeves to keep the kids from filling them up with dirt/sand etc. It worked great.

Nicely played.

*applauds*