Wooden posts as stilts
Is that having to share the bottom bunk with Bubba?
I don't know if you know about preservation or have just been googling, but industrial procesess are just ways to speed up natural ones. Timber cellulose fibre absorbs preservative into the cells.
I think current telegraph/electricity poles are "european redwood" aka scots pine? Which is then obviously treated with creosote.
If you go down a builders merchant and ask for treated timber usually all they will have is cheap pine/spruce that is dipped with some watery junk that doesn't do much to the life of the timber.
You can get other more durable species from a good timber yard or sawmill. Larch, chestnut etc
The old fenceposts round here are Larch (heartwood) and they have lasted 40yrs or whatever, and they are only 3" thick.
Some places also sell creosote treated posts/rails etc
Coal tar creosote is available to buy in a minimum of 20l drums for "professional use only"
I don't think placing a timber post in concrete helps either. Rammed earth is fine.
If you go down a builders merchant and ask for treated timber usually all they will have is cheap pine/spruce that is dipped with some watery junk that doesn't do much to the life of the timber.
You can get other more durable species from a good timber yard or sawmill. Larch, chestnut etc
The old fenceposts round here are Larch (heartwood) and they have lasted 40yrs or whatever, and they are only 3" thick.
Some places also sell creosote treated posts/rails etc
Coal tar creosote is available to buy in a minimum of 20l drums for "professional use only"
I don't think placing a timber post in concrete helps either. Rammed earth is fine.
Seems google really is getting lots of use today .....
I hope you're not meaning me - almost everything I build is out of larch! Usually 2nd grade, from the local sawmill. And sheds etc get painted with creosote.
Yes and I have 1940s pictures of men chucking buckets of water onto the base of them because they used to catch fire in the summers where I live. The shed I have is on old sleepers -- some of them still have sawn-off bolts stuck into them from the tracks.
Don't worry, freddie has built a career from what he learns here on DIYnot.
The most annoying thing is that I've helped him on his way to several holidays around the globe and not a single postcard or stick of rock.
The most annoying thing is that I've helped him on his way to several holidays around the globe and not a single postcard or stick of rock.
I did this with a log store I built. I had felled an ash tree and used the branches to build the frame for it. Rather than stick the upright branches into the ground and concrete, I rested them on pads with a circular disk of stainless steel below, which were then put onto 2" thick slabs. Might not last decades but I expect it to be up for the duration of my time at our house.
I'm still thinking about the concrete posts into the ground idea, but should it prove costly to do this I'll consider the posts 'resting' on concrete pads. Creating a frame from this and then fixing the summer house to it would work and there would be more than enough weight to keep the thing rooted down.