Gate post repair

One of the 7" square posts, that hold up our large black gates, had broken at ground level.

When Shelley and I started digging it out we discovered that the rot had gone deep in to the ground. That made it very difficult to remove.

As we struggled to get the remains of the timber out of the concrete hole we decided we needed to come up with an alternate plan.

Two bits of angle iron down the inside of the hole and outside of the post would do the trick... but I didn't have any angle iron.

I phoned our neighbour, Lee. Luckily for us, he had a small pile of salvaged posts and two of those were ideal. Thank you Lee.

I ground points on the posts and drilled out some extra holes.
A quick side note, cobalt drills were far superior for drilling holes in angle iron. The normal HSS drills would blunt before getting all the way through but the cobalt versions carried on through and did all the holes.

I chiselled out the corners of the post to fit the angle iron and with some effort we twisted and bashed the heavy post in to position. The angle iron is forced in to the remains of the old post by over a foot and the base of the new post is about a foot underground. That gives about 2 foot of support under ground and the timber tightly held in the concrete hole.

The result, at the moment, is very stable with no movement in the post at all. I think I'd use that method again for putting posts in.