# T-post spacing



## cast iron

Going to put in 1200 feet of fence, will use very minimal amounts of wood posts along this span, only where needed due to soft ground. Will be 4 strand barb wire fence.

Need to determine roughly how many t-posts to buy for a 1200 foot run. What spacing would you use?

Thanks


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## js2743

8' and no more than 10' with a wood post every 100' and braces every 200' is how i do it, the more post you have in a fence the better it is.


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## Alice In TX/MO

No more than ten.


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## Janis Sauncy

We're going with 8-foot spacing, with every fourth one a wooden post. We're putting up four-foot field fence (for goats) and this spacing is working real well for a nice, tight fence.

Janis


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## bqz

One every 10ft and a post every 50ft.
Holds well and looks good too.


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## doulanobles

We went every 10-12 foot for field fence and it's nice and tight and looks good. On the softeset ground, we went wood every 3rd post or so.


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## texican

......Survey Says........

....10....:sing:

I usually just step it off.

Sometimes I make obvious errors... don't want someone seeing it and think I've gotten rich and hired it done... and OTOH most folks know I'm a tightwad and wouldn't spend good money...and I don't want them thinking I can build a super great fence... otherwise they'd be'a wanting me to build theirs...


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## Janis Sauncy

Well, crap. It sounds like I could have gone with ten-foot spacing instead of the eight-foot and saved a little money on fence posts. 

Oh, well. I think that the fencing that's going in where it can be seen from the road, I'll continue with the eight-foot for the sake of uniformity. But I think I'll tell my son (who's doing the work) to space them farther apart as he works his way around behind the house and up the hill.

Janis


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## Spinner

For barb wire we used to space 12' (we don't use barb wire anymore)
For woven wire we space 10'. 
For goat fencing we space 8'.


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## terrythetaod

Maybe everyone else knows this (I didn't when I put up my fence)... 

the wire goes on the inside of the posts if you are fencing animals IN. It goes on the outside if you are fencing animals OUT.


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## Scrounger

I go with 12' spacing between posts for my goats - either barb, woven or combo. Been working great. I cut posts out of my "back 40" so I usually go 2 steel, one wood, 2 steel, one wood.....Wood on the corners.


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## BetsyK in Mich

First I put up high tensile wire with wooden post every 32 feet. Sheep pretty much ignored it so replaced it with woven wire and two Tpost between each wood post. Made a good fence, a bit expensive but I couldn't keep the sheep in my rotational grazing lots without doing it. Figures out to about 10' between. It is to the back of the farm so not concerned about how it looks.

I would think the lay of the land would have some impact, going up and over a slope and down the other side may need to be considered. Don't know, my land is pretty flat.

I found out we could drive Tposts with the bucket on my Case crawler if I had someone to hold the post in the right spot until I got pressure on it. This was after many post driven with the pipe with handles driver. I'm a slow learner!


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## cast iron

BetsyK in Mich said:


> I found out we could drive Tposts with the bucket on my Case crawler if I had someone to hold the post in the right spot until I got pressure on it. This was after many post driven with the pipe with handles driver. I'm a slow learner!


That's good to hear, we were wondering if we could drive them with the bucket on our excavator, that would sure beat using the hand driver.


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## cast iron

As with just about everything, fencing stuff has sure gone up in price. I last priced a roll of barbed wire in may of 2005 and it was $50. Called the farm store today and a roll is now $80. 

We were fortunate enough to buy a bunch of recently removed straight t-posts for less than half the cost of new ones. The posts come with the used barbed wire in coils of fairly long lengths, but there will be some splicing involved. And I doubt that using this wire is going to be as user friendly as a continuous roll of new wire tightly wound on a spool. But when the price is right...


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## THETOOLMAN

several years ago I had the FFA put up a fence as a project. they done a bang up job. I bought the materials & fed them lunch 3 days I made out on that one & they thanked me & call every year wanting to do more!


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## Janis Sauncy

Wayne:

I think you're in my area, aren't you? If you're planning on doing a lot of fencing and it can wait until the fall, I think Del's has another "customer appreciation days" sale coming up in October. They just had one in early March and I think they do this twice a year (I'm not 100% sure on the one in October).

When they have these sales, a lot of specific stuff goes on sale but even the stuff that doesn't go on sale is still marked down 10%. Since the March sale coincides with income tax refund time, the last two years I've taken advantage of those sales to buy a lot of my fencing stuff, especially the expensive tube/mesh gates I'm using all around my place (cross-fencing, etc.). The gates run about $107.00 (for the 8-foot ones), so, at 10%, that's a fair savings on just the gates alone.

They had a fencing sale just this last weekend, but I didn't get in there until Monday (after the sale was over) and they still gave me 10% off on the fencing materials I was buying.

Janis


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## cast iron

Janis Sauncy said:


> Wayne:
> 
> I think you're in my area, aren't you? If you're planning on doing a lot of fencing and it can wait until the fall, I think Del's has another "customer appreciation days" sale coming up in October. They just had one in early March and I think they do this twice a year (I'm not 100% sure on the one in October).
> 
> When they have these sales, a lot of specific stuff goes on sale but even the stuff that doesn't go on sale is still marked down 10%. Since the March sale coincides with income tax refund time, the last two years I've taken advantage of those sales to buy a lot of my fencing stuff, especially the expensive tube/mesh gates I'm using all around my place (cross-fencing, etc.). The gates run about $107.00 (for the 8-foot ones), so, at 10%, that's a fair savings on just the gates alone.
> 
> They had a fencing sale just this last weekend, but I didn't get in there until Monday (after the sale was over) and they still gave me 10% off on the fencing materials I was buying.
> Janis


Thanks for the heads-up on the sale, Janis. Yes our property is in your area but it is just used for farm land at this time as we live up in snohomish county. The way things are going we may not get around to putting the fence in until fall so that October sale may work out, but I wanted to jump on these used fence posts as the price was good.

Also, you were correct in the earlier thread with regard to tax exempt status at the farm store and the like without having a "business license". I was able to get tax exempt status at Del's, and Home Depot said they would do the same. I'm still checking with the gravel pit about this issue as we will need some loads of gravel hauled in and I imagine that will not be inexpensive.


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## Minelson

Don't forget to check for buried electrical


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## Rick

texican said:


> ......Survey Says........
> 
> ....10....:sing:
> 
> I usually just step it off.
> 
> Sometimes I make obvious errors... don't want someone seeing it and think I've gotten rich and hired it done... and OTOH most folks know I'm a tightwad and wouldn't spend good money...and I don't want them thinking I can build a super great fence... otherwise they'd be'a wanting me to build theirs...


You crack me up!


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## Quint

I generally go with 10ft.

I'm getting ready to start on 13,300 ft of fence so I've been checking prices pretty close and the price of wire and t posts is much higher than the last time I bought fence materials. When you're buying somewhere in the neighborhood of 1400 posts and 40 rolls of wire even small price hikes make a big impact. I may have enough hedge to cut 1400 posts. Won't know until I start cutting.


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## Scrounger

Quint said:


> I generally go with 10ft.
> 
> I'm getting ready to start on 13,300 ft of fence so I've been checking prices pretty close and the price of wire and t posts is much higher than the last time I bought fence materials. When you're buying somewhere in the neighborhood of 1400 posts and 40 rolls of wire even small price hikes make a big impact. I may have enough hedge to cut 1400 posts. Won't know until I start cutting.


Thats EXACTLY why I scrounge for used posts for free and buy used ones at auction. Can't afford to buy new.


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## Quint

Scrounger said:


> Thats EXACTLY why I scrounge for used posts for free and buy used ones at auction. Can't afford to buy new.


I think I have enough hedge, probably more than enough, to cut enough posts to do the job. Trouble is that by the time I get the hedge posts cut I probably won't be able to get started on the fence. I may have to cut hedge posts this summer and fence nest summer. 1400 posts is a lot of cutting, cutting the scraps for firewood, cutting up the brush and putting it into piles. Lots of work for one man.

I haven't figured it out yet but considering what gas is running how much am actually saving by cutting hedge posts? Guess I won't know that until I go out and cut 100 posts and see how much gas it takes.


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## Ed Norman

A gallon of gas costs as much as a new T post. How many hedge can you cut on a gallon?


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## Scrounger

Quint said:


> I think I have enough hedge, probably more than enough, to cut enough posts to do the job. Trouble is that by the time I get the hedge posts cut I probably won't be able to get started on the fence. I may have to cut hedge posts this summer and fence nest summer. 1400 posts is a lot of cutting, cutting the scraps for firewood, cutting up the brush and putting it into piles. Lots of work for one man.
> 
> I haven't figured it out yet but considering what gas is running how much am actually saving by cutting hedge posts? Guess I won't know that until I go out and cut 100 posts and see how much gas it takes.


round here (SE Nebraska), 100 Hedge line posts (4"-5" diameter) will cost you $600 to $750. Gas ain't gonna cost your near that, just time.


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## Beeman

Spacing of T-posts is not nearly as important as strength of corners. Your corners bear all of the pressure. Also don't build any curves, straight angle pulls only and direction change requires wood posts built like corners. The tension changes from temperature and weight of the wire will pull a fence down without an animal ever getting near it.


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## HockeyFan

10 ft is what I've seen.


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## Slev

Avoid the temptation, stick with 8' !!!! That way if you get a bad spot or whatever reason, you can always splice in a 16' cattle panel without worry.


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## 3ravens

Ummmmm, OK, is there a post on HT somewhere about actually building a fence with proper corners and such? Or a link to another site? I would like to fence in the "orchard" this year so I can turn the dogs in there and keep the deer out! :grump: And then fence in the garden to keep out the chickens.....


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## FannyMay

We just fenced in a new 40 acre pasture. Infact they just got through spreading the lime yesterday. We used high tensil electric wire and used white fiberglass post that you drive inthe ground like you do a t-post, but we bought them used and we could put them at 30 feet apart and every 4th post we put a wooden post. We used wood post and also we used old power poles that we used a chain saw to cut to the length or height that we wanted our corner post and gate post to be. We did however use a 5 strand barbed wire fence against the road and the t-post there are 8 foot apart. The fiber glass post had holes already drilled in them and we just run the line through the holes and did not have to buy any insulators. It looks really nice.


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