Will the posts hold in our clay (or sandy) soil?

A lot of the Coast sits on reactive clay. It is the main reason a fence leans a year after it goes in. The fix is not a secret. It is the footing, and it is the part most cheap quotes cut.

The short answer

Clay soil moves. It swells when it is wet and shrinks when it is dry. That movement pushes on anything set shallow. A post will hold in clay when the footing is deep enough, wide enough, and set in concrete. Get the footing right and the fence stays straight for decades.

What we do in clay

• Go deeper. We set posts deeper than the minimum, so the footing sits below the worst of the seasonal movement.
• Go wider. A wider concrete footing spreads the load and resists the push from the clay.
• Set in concrete. Posts go in concrete, not rammed dirt. Dirt lets the post walk.
• Space the posts right. Closer post spacing on tall or exposed runs keeps the panels from flexing.

You cannot see a footing once the job is done. That is exactly why it is the first thing a cheap quote shrinks. We name the depth on the quote, so there is nothing hidden.

Where Postline makes it easy

We fence on reactive clay every week. We read the ground on the measure and size the footings for it. The depth and the post spacing go on the quote in plain numbers, so you can compare us to the next quote on the part that actually holds the fence up.

One more thing

If you have seen movement before, cracked paths, sticking doors, a fence that already leans, tell us on the measure. It tells us how reactive the ground is, so we can size the footings to suit.