How to Fix a Broken Fence Post in Under 30 Minutes

What's up ?

It's Dan Perry .

And in this video , I'm going to show you how to repair a broken fence post .

Like you see here , the fence is all wobbling like this .

But I'm going to show you how to do it without having to actually replace the fence post itself and for about $10 of materials total .

So let's go ahead and get started .

So the first thing I'm going to do is put on some ear protection and some eye protection .

I'll grab just a regular hammer and a crow bar here and just start peeling away the boards that are near the post .

And if we can , I'm gonna try to avoid breaking any of these because I could just reuse them once you remove five or six boards enough to give you room to work , remove the nails or the screws that are connecting the fence rails to the post .

So basically , what I'm going to use is one of these fences here .

Um , but I want to put it right here .

So I need a little bit of extra room .

So I'm just gonna cut a little bit off .

All right .

So then what I'm gonna do is go ahead and dig around the post just a little bit .

Um Just so I can expose just to the point where I actually expose the concrete footing .

So there's always a concrete footing down there and I just need to get to that .

So I just dig with the back of my hammer and I'm already scraping on top of it right here .

So that's good .

So what happens is basically the post just rots right here .

So it's only rotted for about a couple of inches right there up here .

It's still perfectly good .

The post is still perfectly fine .

There's nothing wrong with this post .

It's just rotted down below where it broke that .

It'll take something to kind of scrape in there .

So I find the hole in the concrete where the post sits .

So now you can see that what we're going to do , install this .

Easy Me right there .

We're basically going to hammer it in .

So the trick here is to get the easy mender wedged in between the concrete and the fence post .

So you're gonna wanna make sure it's centered as it's going in .

You know , you can tap it on the side if it's not centered perfectly and then just go ahead and start pounding it in .

It may take quite a few hits in order to get it to go all the way in , but eventually it will go down .

Now , occasionally you'll find that the easy mender is about a quarter of an inch wider than the actual post and therefore the hole in the concrete .

You might be wondering if it'll actually work , um , nine out of 10 times , it still will work .

Although occasionally the easy mender will split the concrete .

In that case , you'll have to go with another type of repair for the fence post at a certain point .

This starts to get hard to hit , it starts to get beat up and you're gonna wanna , um , start hitting it from the top .

However , if you just start banging on the top right here , it's gonna get all folded over .

So what I like to do , put a piece of , just put a couple of , um , shims in there like that , then I'll actually grab myself a full size sledge hammer and then use the larger sledge hammer to distribute the force across the entire top surface of the easy mender .

Otherwise the easy mender does get all folded over .

And basically , you're just gonna keep on hitting that sledge hammer until you reach the point where the , this little notch in the easy mender , the top , the bottom of that notch reaches the top of the concrete .

And that's how you know that your easy menor is all the way in there and your post is gonna be nice and solid .

So , obviously , I've sped things up a little bit here just so you didn't have to watch me hammer this thing for 10 minutes straight , but again , it does take quite a few hits , just stick with it .

Um , definitely having this larger sledge hammer is definitely helpful .

And again , this easy mender , these things are only like , these things are less than 10 bucks at the store .

I can't remember the exact price , but they're pretty low price .

So , you know , you're talking about only 10 bucks plus the price of a couple of screws and your fence post is gonna be repaired .

At this point , the hard work is over and now you just need to secure the easy measure to the post with a few screws .

I'm using 2.5 inch exterior screws here to tighten it up against the post .

All right .

So we're basically gonna pre drill some holes into this .

Um , and then let our , let our bit mark on that wood or mark on that piece of steel right there and we'll do the same from in over , from over here .

So you just take a bigger screwed , uh , bigger drill bit .

It doesn't matter if it's bigger than 3 16 .

So it gives you some room , you'll just drill where you made the mark that will allow your screws to actually penetrate through this , the easy mender piece of steel .

Then what you wanna do is grab yourself either at least a three inch long , but ideally like a 3.5 or a four inch screw uh exterior , of course .

So it doesn't rust and break on you and then just go right into those holes that you just pre drilled .

Usually you need about two screws board .

Now it's nice and solid .

So that's all set .

And then once we've done that , just go to the side screws here , tighten it down .

So basically , you're just attaching that you're just attaching the easy to the post .

So it's nice and solid .

You'll do that on both sides .

So now the post is in there , it's nice and solid and you want to make sure to install this this way , you know , perpendicular to the fence because that's going to be the most the strongest .

If you , if you try to put the easy mender right here on this side , your fence is going to wobble quite a bit still .

So this is going to keep it real solid .

Then once you're done with that , so you can just tie in these top pieces again , just again , use like a three inch screw at least ideally like a 3.5 , 4 inch screw .

Just come back in here and screw or nail these back on .

Yes .

Fill in the rest nice solid fence again .

It took me about 25 30 minutes to do that whole entire process .

So definitely an awesome way to repair a fence post .

So I hope that was helpful for you and thank you for watching if you'd like to see more videos like this .

Be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel or visit Diy with Dan dot com .

And if you like home repairs and working with your hands and you like to learn how to turn those skills into a profitable business that allows you to escape your day job .

Then visit me at handyman startup dot com .

Thanks for watching .

I'm Dan Perry .