Burying untreated wood...

rockcity

rockcity

everyday is a chance to get better
Joined
Apr 10, 2005
Location
Greenville, NC
Ok, the RV carport thread got me thinking...

I want and need something for the tractor and RV but don’t necessarily need to spend the $$$ on a high $$$ building or even tall treated posts. I have 8 acres full of good sized trees I need to take down to build a house this year.

so, how can I use these trees for the posts in an RV/tractor carport without having to send them off to get treated? How do I protect them from rotting in the ground?

initial thought is to char them and set them in concrete. Or pour sonitubes and set the tree posts 12” off the ground...

anyone have any other thoughts or ideas for setting untreated wood in the ground without rotting away in 2 years?
 
I’m no expert, but it depends on the trees. We live on a really old farm and find fence posts in the woods that I bet have been out there for 50+ years directly buried in the ground. Black locust and cedar mostly I think.


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I don’t have any black locust and limited cedar.

I mostly have sycamore, poplar, oak, and SYP that I’m willing to cut down.
 
cyoung said:
I’m no expert, but it depends on the trees. We live on a really old farm and find fence posts in the woods that I bet have been out there for 50+ years directly buried in the ground. Black locust and cedar mostly I think.


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Cut in fall when sap is down, makes a difference.
 
83oldyoda4x4 said:
You can make your own creosote, burnt motor oil, diesel fuel, salt. Or find some telephone poles.
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Stand them in barrels and let soak. Used oil from equipment and toe pigs.

Personally I'd sell the logging wood, or mill for other purposes.
I would then buy used telephone poles as suggested. I am gonna pasture some land using them as fences corners and gate post. The rest will be metal post and high tensile. Two post and cross brace of telephone poles about every 50 yards. Metal post about every ten yards.
 
rockcity said:
thats an idea. I just don’t want to have to source other poles while I have hundreds available, many of which have already fallen over in a storm recently.
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My grandfather used that on his pence posts.He had two steel barrels welded together (laid down w a hinged lid) he would soak them in.If they were to big to soak he would brush it on w a paint brush applying mutiple coats.MY FIL has used burnt oil on untreated poles that were going in the ground w good results.
 
Creosote them with 55 gallon barrels. Thats what was done for my uncles pole shed, in the 50s. Its still standing.
 
Built a tractor shed in alabama ~23 years ago with ceder trees buried in the ground, no concrete either. Still there and strong a dozen hurricanes later. As long as you use a big enough diameter tree it will most likely outlive you without doing anything to it. Adding some washed stone to the bottom of the hole will help
 
braxton357 said:
Built a tractor shed in alabama ~23 years ago with ceder trees buried in the ground, no concrete either. Still there and strong a dozen hurricanes later. As long as you use a big enough diameter tree it will most likely outlive you without doing anything to it. Adding some washed stone to the bottom of the hole will help
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Yepp we have some Cedar fence corner post, been there for years and years.
 
rockcity said:
thats an idea. I just don’t want to have to source other poles while I have hundreds available, many of which have already fallen over in a storm recently.
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If you want to get old telephone poles, it'd be worth while to asking your local municipal or EMC if they would sell their removed ones. GUC might have plenty at the old operations site that they'd sell for cheap or just give away. The muni back home would sell old poles for $30/pole IIRC & the length didn't matter. They'd even let you cut them up on site, but you had to load everything up (including drops) yourself. Let me know if you want/need any help with contact info as I work with GUC, Ayden, Kinston & Washington on a semi-regular basis.
 
IMHO, strip the bark and coat what's going in the ground with tar ...... let whoever your grandkids sell the place to deal with it.
 
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Lurch830 said:
If you want to get old telephone poles, it'd be worth while to asking your local municipal or EMC if they would sell their removed ones. GUC might have plenty at the old operations site that they'd sell for cheap or just give away. The muni back home would sell old poles for $30/pole IIRC & the length didn't matter. They'd even let you cut them up on site, but you had to load everything up (including drops) yourself. Let me know if you want/need any help with contact info as I work with GUC, Ayden, Kinston & Washington on a semi-regular basis.
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I’ve looked around Duke’s surplus listings but they didn’t have any listed recently. I do plan to build a barn in the future, so this may be another good source for poles
 
If you're looking to plant untreated posts into the ground you have a few options. Coat it in tar, motor oil or anything like that. I know my grandpa used to pour the chip fat oil over the post bases and claimed it stopped it from rotting. Maybe he was mad, but he had some logic - and they never rotted.
 
awheelterd said:
My man just bought a $30k tractor but is too cheap to buy telephone poles to build a shelter for it :lol:.
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All my $ is gone now. :lol:


Really, the shelter will be temororary until the barn is built at the land. So I don’t want to spend a ton of $ to tear it down later. But I’m trying to locate it and prep to where if I locate it right, I don’t have to move it later and it can be useful if I decide to keep it.
 
rockcity said:
All my $ is gone now. :lol:


Really, the shelter will be temororary until the barn is built at the land. So I don’t want to spend a ton of $ to tear it down later. But I’m trying to locate it and prep to where if I locate it right, I don’t have to move it later and it can be useful if I decide to keep it.
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Which side of greenville is your land? Seems like I saw them replacing poles a little while back on the other side of Ayden.

How big of a shelter are you trying to build. I'm in a similar predicament. I plan to build a shop/barn in the next year or two when prices come down and my money is back right, so I didn't want to spend $3g on a permanentish shelter that I'd have to tear down later. That's why I went with a cheap carport shelter. I want some cows and the wife wants goats in the future so I figured I could pretty easily pick up the carport and move it out to the field for cows or goats when the time comes.
 
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