O.T. Fence Question

One leg is 70 feet, to the corner, the other is 100 feet to the corner, the middle of this 100' section has bent over out of plumb. I used 10 foot posts and buried them as deep as I could dig by hand, the middle of the 100 foot span is where the problem is, and the grade changes slightly, middle is lower than both ends, I did re grade the site but just scraped the surface and filled low areas to make it as level as possible, the soil around posts is for the most part undisturbed. I think it's also heavy clay type soil.

Thet are set at least 3 feet deep each 8 on center, the 70 foot leg is anchored to a concrete wall at one end, so is the 100 foot section, 70 foot section I did concrete a few holes as the shale rock slope up to the surface along that run, also chopped out a socket in the shale and placed concrete, this side is good, the other side just went out of plumb after the frost and thaw cycle, the post holes are wallowed out, possibly the wind pushing on the fence, and soft ground.

I'd like to straighten this thing out, it's a customer of mine and I told her I'd be back to set it straight when the ground thaws, most fence outfits do not concrete or use dry mix, as they state the posts decay sooner, so I set and packed these in tight, really spent a lot of time on this job to do it right, beyond what you would get from a fence contractor, using those end brackets, chopping out in the shale etc., the ends of each run are anchored and set with concrete, I was on the money, dead on the property line with an 1" to spare in my favor, now it's an embarassment to look at ! LOL ! Well she knows I back my work, no problem at all, heck she never even called, I went back and looked to see how it held up, what I saw was a little different than when I installed it.

What I'm wondering, after re-plumbing the 100 foot run, I can anchor to the building and pull it back, it's brick, open the hole make room pull some more, then brace etc., should I just concrete a few posts in the middle, frost may heave up but the out of plumb thing with this heavy clay soil seems to be worse of a problem. Seems the middle post on this run may have the shallow'est post depth and is weakest one, just wondering what might be the best fix, not a fence contractor, but will do them at a customers request.

One photo of the site, day 1 on the job.

Posts set on 100'-0" run

When you say you can brace to the brick building, do you mean you can brace temporarily while you are doing whatever you need to tighten up the posts in the ground, or that you can brace permanently? If the latter, you might consider bracing with steel from near the top of the post or posts and angling upward toward the building. That would allow unobstructed passage alongside the house. Since the posts are deeply embedded you could also trench shallowly from post(s) to house and attach a steel brace from the post below grade to the house below grade.

Both ends of the 100' run are already secured, so I suspect that two more posts braced top and bottom would be enough to maintain plumb on that whole run.

They say irony is dead in contemporary American literature, but I don't know how else to describe a situation where you do every single thing right, overdo everything you think will make a difference, and still have your fence go out of plumb the first winter. The phrase, "Gee, that's a b!tch," doesn't seem to cut it.

All the best, Stan

It's nice to be able to take the time to do the best work whenever possible, the stairs came out nice and only needed to be re-shimmed once before I fastened them to the ledger and the toe boards, one embedded with L bolts and the other expansion bolted to the new concrete upper step. I learned how to do a few types of stairs from the woodworkers in a millshop at a lumber yard at about 19, and have built lots of them over the years in my spare time for side jobs. Incidentally, just about every component on this job can be disassembled for easy repair except the 3 posts in concrete. Always something, be nice to make it right for the customer and always good for reference when it looks good.

Now some of the funny little inane things I did, anti seize on the expansion bolt threads, all steel connection pieces were cleaned and all surfaces were coated with Zinc Rich galv. spray like used for your welds and even touched up after installed, hence the overspray. It did not rust one bit.

Funny how something you know and deal with a often in one area, gets little consideration in other practical uses like this, and can come back to haunt you a little. Glad it was mentioned, was just thinking the posts were wobbling from wind load and soft dense wet clay soil, the building is up on hill formed by a river valley, they do get some wind there.

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If you are going to use the building to pull it back. check your insurance are upto date.