# Preserving Poles/Posts In Ground



## Ramblin Wreck (Jun 10, 2005)

Last night I read a reader response in Mother Earth News that indicated wrapping a pole/post in a waterproof wrap just below and above ground level would greatly extend the life of the pole/post. Do you think I could get the same affect by "painting" with a waterproofing material, like tar used to seal a foundation?


----------



## rambler (Jan 20, 2004)

An age-old question. Depends some on the type of soil you have, how you are backfilling against the pole, how much rain you get, etc.

It should help. How much is the question - a tiny bit or a whole lot? Depends on the varriables.

--->Paul


----------



## brewswain (Dec 31, 2006)

I have read that if you 'char' the bottom of the post, termites will refuse it.


----------



## culpeper (Nov 1, 2002)

Paint the buried bit, and even the entire post, with sump oil! Deters the termites, and helps preserve the wood, too. 

Or you could paint the buried bit with tar. Old fashioned, perhaps, but our timber fencers still coat trimmed pieces of treated timber with tar. It soaks into the timber after a time. 

Charring the wood won't make a scrap of difference to a determined termite. Probably makes the wood a little easier to digest, if anything.


----------



## BackfourtyMI. (Sep 3, 2007)

We paint the part that's going to be buried with the waterproof tar stuff that you's use on the outside of basement wall's before you fill in around the basement.


----------



## raymilosh (Jan 12, 2005)

When I clean my chimney, I save the creosote in a bucket. When I'm going to put posts in the ground, I mix some with kerosene and paint it on. Creosote is apparently poisonous so after the post is creosoted, any living things that try to eat the post will die trying.
OK, well, I'm kind of bluffing. I do have a bucket of creosote saved, and I have heard of creosoting posts, but haven't actually done it yet. I'm not sure what will dissolve the creosote. I think kerosene will work, or turpentine but I'm not sure yet.


----------



## Ramblin Wreck (Jun 10, 2005)

Thanks to all for your responses.


----------



## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

How about coating the end of the post with some of the 50 year silicone caulking? Expect the cost would be about the cost of a replacement post however.

When placing a bathroom stool I apply a layer of silicone all around the area that the stool will cover. Have removed stools in several old houses for replacement and found damaged wood. Installed correctly there is never a problem, but a little insurance doesn't cost much extra. Apply several beads of it and then spread with a small trowel, piece of wood, or whatever. Coat the edge of the board where the pipe comes through the floor, under the flange, etc. 

Sorry if too far off topic.


----------



## Ramblin Wreck (Jun 10, 2005)

Windy in Kansas said:


> When placing a bathroom stool I apply a layer of silicone all around the area that the stool will cover. Have removed stools in several old houses for replacement and found damaged wood. Installed correctly there is never a problem, but a little insurance doesn't cost much extra. Apply several beads of it and then spread with a small trowel, piece of wood, or whatever. Coat the edge of the board where the pipe comes through the floor, under the flange, etc.
> 
> Sorry if too far off topic.


Maybe off topic but interesting. I'm hoping/planning to build a pole barn for hay storage this Spring, and if I can increase the life of the pole/post (and therefore the barn) by doing a little prep work on the front end, I would like to do so. Applying a coating of tar to the bottom and sides up to just above ground level would be an easy thing to do. I just want to make sure I'm not "messing up" something else.


----------



## Darren (May 10, 2002)

Wreck, just head for the coast and find a lumber yard that stocks marine lumber. The 2.5# CCA. will outlast you and probably your kids. You can get piling and large dimension lumber. You won't have any problems getting 6x6's or 8x8. Even 10x10's or larger can be had.

By the way, charring a post is an old wives' tale. Fungi causes posts to rot. If fungi can get to it, no matter how you treat it. it will rot. Fungi can't affect wood pressure treated with CCA. No matter what you smear or paint on the wood if spores get to the untreated wood, it's only a matter of time before it's rotten.


----------



## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

raymilosh said:


> When I clean my chimney, I save the creosote in a bucket. When I'm going to put posts in the ground, I mix some with kerosene and paint it on. Creosote is apparently poisonous so after the post is creosoted, any living things that try to eat the post will die trying.
> OK, well, I'm kind of bluffing. I do have a bucket of creosote saved, and I have heard of creosoting posts, but haven't actually done it yet. I'm not sure what will dissolve the creosote. I think kerosene will work, or turpentine but I'm not sure yet.


The "creosote" that is a wood preservative is not the same "creosote" found in wood burning chimneys. Preservative creosote is boiled off from coal tar (from coking ovens). It is a good preservative, but the EPA is getting closer and closer to banning it if they haven't already. I suppose wood creosote is so named because it is sort of boiled off in the same way, but it won't help preserve wood much more than any other gunk like old motor oil.

Because CCA is an arsenic compound the EPA is beginning to frown on it also, but it never, in any concentration, held a candle to a good pressure creosoted timber.


----------



## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

I sure wouldn't use tar as it dries out and separates from what it is applied to when exposed to weather. It would then hold moisture against the post and hasten the demise.
Just my opinion and belief based on what I have seen/learned over the years.

I'm familiar with posts set in a metal bracket on concrete piers and many farm shed builders have gone to building that way.

Here is another method for post longevity that I've not known about before now. 
http://www.postprotector.com/index.aspx A little skeptical as it seems to me it would just hold moisture around the post hastening its decay.


----------



## rambler (Jan 20, 2004)

Ramblin Wreck said:


> Maybe off topic but interesting. I'm hoping/planning to build a pole barn for hay storage this Spring, and if I can increase the life of the pole/post (and therefore the barn) by doing a little prep work on the front end, I would like to do so. Applying a coating of tar to the bottom and sides up to just above ground level would be an easy thing to do. I just want to make sure I'm not "messing up" something else.


In today's world if you use store-bought wood, you can't find good timbers any more. I find using 2x6 or 2x8 pressure treated laminated together works better, you get stronger wood & straighter because one big knot doesn't mess up a whole timber. As well you can spend top dollar for good pressure treated below ground, and make the top of the column out of untreated - you are laminating different pieces together. Spend the money for the bottom treatment, save the money above ground.

Get the good top pressure treated stuff made for continuous ground contact, not the cheap stuff sold off the shelf of the box store - ask for the pressure rating & get the good stuff.

Perma-colmns is a brand name of a concrete column with a metal bracket on top, look it up on line. Will last forever pretty much, concrete under ground, wood above. Costs more, and hard to duplicate without engineering experience - a pole building wall doesn't like that joint in the middle so has to be built right....

In my climate you don't want to encase wood in concrete - it rots it off fast. I hear it works in other climates, so your milage may varry.

The rot happens in the 8 inches where the soil dries out & rewets, a tad below the surface. This is the spot that will rot off. Down deeper you have no problems, only that narrow spot.

My thoughts.

--->Paul


----------



## david_r (Jan 6, 2010)

Windy in Kansas said:


> Here is another method for post longevity that I've not known about before now.
> http://www.postprotector.com/index.aspx A little skeptical as it seems to me it would just hold moisture around the post hastening its decay.


Probably right to be skeptical. The install instructions show the use of pressure treated lumber. What's the point in that?


----------



## Darren (May 10, 2002)

O&ITW in my post I mentioned the marine grade CCA. EPA still allows it because nothing else has replaced it for salt water use. Marine grade CCA has four to six times the chemical in the treated lumber as compared with the stuff the big box stores used to sell for decking, equipment, etc. Those stores never carried the 2.4# treated lumber. 

If you want to find it today, you'll need to find a yard that sells to bulkheaders and other companies that need piling for piers and dimensional lumber for marine use.

I tried to get some shipped to WV last summer but the local lumber company's rep at the treatment company got more than a little snotty. Come summer, I'll order the stuff from a yard in NJ and go pick it up.


----------



## raymilosh (Jan 12, 2005)

O&ITW, 
Thanks for the information. The creosote idea is one of those things I heard about but never really researched. I may have me another of those wives tales. (No offense to wives intended.) So, um, wanna buy a bucket of creosote..cheap?

CCA is a chemical name. The ingredients are Copper, Chromium and Arsenic. 

They are three naturally occurring elements, all of which are poisonous in higher concentrations. Same idea as the tar and creosote methods of preserving wood...poisonous to things that try to eat them.


----------



## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

Find out how telephone poles are made.


----------



## deerhunter5555 (Jun 21, 2007)

rambler said:


> In today's world if you use store-bought wood, you can't find good timbers any more. I find using 2x6 or 2x8 pressure treated laminated together works better, you get stronger wood & straighter because one big knot doesn't mess up a whole timber. As well you can spend top dollar for good pressure treated below ground, and make the top of the column out of untreated - you are laminating different pieces together. Spend the money for the bottom treatment, save the money above ground.
> 
> Get the good top pressure treated stuff made for continuous ground contact, not the cheap stuff sold off the shelf of the box store - ask for the pressure rating & get the good stuff.
> 
> ...


Great post Paul! Could you please explain how you "laminate" your pressure treated 2X6/2X8 tomake your posts?
Thanks,
Erch


----------



## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

I just use cedar logs... naturally resistant to rot and insects (at least the heartwood). Or, Post oak. Remove the sapwood, and while the area is drying out, soak with diesel, and before you put it in the hole, tar it... should last forever. Great uncle's barn has been standing for sixty years, down in the river bottom (gets flooded in flood years)... all the posts are post oaks. They're still hard as iron. Can't believe the girly grained wood you find in current pressure treated wood will last that long in ground contact.....


----------



## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

If you seal the bottoms you should also seal the end sticking up or it will wick water down to the bottom.


----------



## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

Darren said:


> O&ITW in my post I mentioned the marine grade CCA. EPA still allows it because nothing else has replaced it for salt water use. Marine grade CCA has four to six times the chemical in the treated lumber as compared with the stuff the big box stores used to sell for decking, equipment, etc. Those stores never carried the 2.4# treated lumber.
> 
> If you want to find it today, you'll need to find a yard that sells to bulkheaders and other companies that need piling for piers and dimensional lumber for marine use.
> 
> I tried to get some shipped to WV last summer but the local lumber company's rep at the treatment company got more than a little snotty. Come summer, I'll order the stuff from a yard in NJ and go pick it up.


My experience is with mostly with utility poles. I tried to get some addtional information on the 2.4# CCA stuff, but it is apparently so specialized that a source is hard to find. It may be that it requires a special license to purchase.. There is still a bit of creosote stuff out there, but as far as I can tell it is not available to the general public. The OP might be around a Redcedar source... that might be his best bet all around.


----------



## fixer1958 (Dec 12, 2005)

Concrete pier would be the best way to go if you are worried about rot.
I built a shed using the laminated 2x in the ground and conventional lumber 2' up from there. Just screw or bolt 3-2x6 or 2x8 together about 6' long and leave the center section 18" shorter. Do your coventional lumber the same only opposite and slide it into the one that's in the ground. Lap joint so to speak.
Works sweet when setting trusses, do the same thing at the top with the center board shorter. The truss slides right in and stays there.
I got the idea from a Morton building.
I don't know if they still do it the same way, but I would do it again. 
More work, but it works out well and has been there 20 years with no problems.


----------



## rambler (Jan 20, 2004)

fixer1958 said:


> I got the idea from a Morton building.
> I don't know if they still do it the same way, but I would do it again.


They do as of last November anyhow. 

Did all that so fast, I really didn't get to see it happen.... But then, when you are a month behind on harvest and still doing beans & corn up here in snow-land, you don't have much time to watch. Any other year, and I coulda enjoyed watching the build from a lawn chair....

For the 3 sticks in the column, you don't want any 2 joints across from each other. Stager them anyhow a foot from any other. Some adhesive as well as nails probably is a good deal too.

--->Paul


----------

