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How do I keep my fence from settling so much? (waveform.social)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/homeimprovement

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I'm in Austin Texas. We installed a fence three years ago and the posts between the gate door have shifted about four inches. This makes closing the door a pain in the ass, as the latch quickly becomes misaligned. A few times a year I move the latch bracket down to align it with the other part of the latch. My fence post is full of holes, and along with the constant slamming necessary when it gets out of line, it has started splitting.

How do I end this cycle? How do I keep it from moving so much?

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[–] stealthnerd 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are the posts set in cement? Is the house new construction where the ground may still be settling because it wasn't fully compacted?

People often skip cement footers for fence posts which might be okay if the soil is well compacted and the type of fence isn't sensitive to movement but the one place you should always use cement footers is around gates.

If you already have footers then my suggestion would be to set them deeper. It could be poorly compacted soil or the type of soil that's the problem in which case the only way to combat it is to dig down deeper so the footer reaches more stable soil.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, wooden posts set in cement. Not sure how deep, because it was new construction, so I didn't do it. It seems weird that it's still settling, but we have definitely been having insane weather swings since it was built, that we don't normally get.

Austin IS prone to foundation issues because something about our soul isn't great... I'm in an area that isn't too bad, but definitely has some issues.

It does sound like we're going to have to reset those posts deeper.

[–] Tempus 2 points 1 year ago

New construction increases the likely-hood of loose/disturbed soil. You need deeper footings.