Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Charring the bottom of fence posts, fact or fiction?

I live in desert country where wood decay is not much of an issue. I know of 70+ year old western juniper fence posts that are still in place and rock solid. While decay is not much of a problem, termites can be. I survey staked some areas about 12 years ago, and every stake was eliminated by termites.

When temperatures allow, I've been replacing some lodgepole rails on a fence around my yard, and I've encountered some posts that were near suspended in air by the rails with the bottoms beavered off by termites. I have heard that charring the section of wood that goes into the soil can deter those toothy bugs. It's rumored to be something about a dislike for chewing on near crystalline carbon or burnt wood.

Anyone know if this is fact or fiction. I knocked down about 20 western juniper trees in the forest this morning, and will char the bottoms if it's indeed worthwhile. Anyone know?

creosote may be what your looking for

Can't pick that up in a hardware stores anymore. Maybe I should clean the chimney.

California over the last 10 years or so, has been going through an expedited replacement program for their power poles... I've done a bunch my self over the last decade.

Most of these replaced power poles that by the way are still in use date back to between the 1930's to the 50's.

Check with your local power company, they'll usually let you come in and cut the old poles into sections and haul them off for nothing.




Phil

I would like to cut some lodgepole pine for fenceposts but it wouldn't last long enough to be worth the effort. Finding a good treatment is a trick these days thanks to the EPA. They have it backwards. You can treat 1 post for 50 years with creosote, or you can treat a bunch of 5 yr posts with something that won't last. You get 10x more of the latter in the soil.

We never had any trouble with termites using osage orange for fenceposts. It wouldn't rot, either. Tough on tools like chainsaws, but about as good as RR ties for corner posts and the like.

Plenty of homemade creasote formulas online. We used to just soak the bottom few feet of posts in a barrel of used motor oil cut with diesel.

googled this-

5 gallons of coal tar roofing or driveway sealer, 5 gallons of Diesel Fuel, 5 gallons of used Diesel oil, 2 lbs of feed salt Stir well with an old shovel.

Might work best to dissolve the salt in the diesel fuel before mixing in other ingredients.

I wish I had some Bois'd arc (?sp)- Bodark - Osage Orange. Cedar lasts good down here.

30 gallon drum of used motor oil parked right next to the hole.

Dip post and "plant".

Move on to next hole.

Good to go.

ps

Do you know why posts rot?
It's because the ground is trying to grow it.
That's life.
See?

Bois D Arc when cut green has never been worse on my saws than post oak etc....

But when dry.... I have a gunstock out of it... heavy and tough....

We have one that was a corner post and older than.... when we bought the place in the early 60s... it was pulled when the fence was rebuilt 15 years ago.. builder put it back in said it was better than a cedar....

Yes, wish we had Osage, but it's about a 1000 mile run for me to pick up a load. Obviously a very dense wood, as it has the highest heat yield per unit weight of any wood in the US. I have not seen a heat yield assessment on our mountain mahogany, but it might be right up there. It for sure turns the teeth on ones chainsaw blue. Despite its density, it seems to decay rapidly, and one never finds a straight section either.

Our best post material is western juniper. I have no knowledge on how Utah juniper holds up. Lodgepole pine will near decay before one can get it in the ground.

Back east, one could wear out three post holes with black locust.

I've helped rebuild fence before, set new corners, we use hedge around here, bois d'arc for some of you others, or osage orange. The 70+ year old posts you'd pull out of the ground were just as solid as the new ones we replaced. It sure isn't fun running a chainsaw through a bunch of them though.

The nice thing about hedge posts is you only need to cut them once in your lifetime, as to the original question termites will not eat charred wood, it will still rot.....Russ

Blanket: Thanks, that was the question. When our fire restrictions are over, I'll give them a char.

I know that if you use steel T-posts, you won't have no stinkin' termites...

Redneck: An interesting side bar. I was visiting some ranches out on Kona a few years ago and noticed near universal use of polywire electric fences to contain cattle. With the caustic acids from the volcano and their rains, a steel post and wire will last about 3 to 5 years there. I saw remnants of several t-posts with holes eroded clear through.

Has anyone ever used roofing tar/asphalt to coat and seal the buried portion of the posts? Seems like this would protect from both rot and insects, and since the tar isn't exposed to UV, wouldn't it last? I think it would work as protection from rot, but I'm not certain about insects like ants and termites. Could do the charring first and follow up with tar.

TAR??? I can hear the green-weenies positively GASP with horror...


But - hey, it works for me.. .:D

in Ohiya, we use locust too, same treatments.