Removing Fence Posts

 

We had a fence by the side of the house that needed to be removed. The fence was typical post and rail, with the posts buried half a metre into the ground. Luckily they were not embedded into concrete.

A few months ago, I made a tool that you could use with a high lift jack to remove fence posts without any great fuss.

As an aside here, just try the normal method of wrapping a chain round the post and then using a tractor to pull the post. This method makes a lot of mess and is very dangerous if the chain breaks.


You start by just dropping the tool over the post.


Note that there are no moving parts in the tool and it doesn't need to be adjusted.

Note too, that the post is in pretty good condition. If the post has broken off at the ground as they often do, then all you need to do is dig a few inches into the ground so that the tool can grip the good part of the post.

The tool is linked to the jack using a shackle with a breaking strain of about a tonne and a half.


Note that the high lift jack is stood on a fence rail to equalise the ground pressure.

The jack is now lifted to pull the post out of the ground.


This pull took about a minute and the post came quickly out of the ground.

Celia did most of the pulling for these posts as it's actually quicker if someone else (me) holds the post vertically. This just shows how powerful the jack/puller combination is.


Note that little damage is done to the ground and in many cases a new post could be driven firmly into the old hole.

The jack can also be used to lift the heavy gate off its hinges.


This picture shows how easy it is to pull a post in a restricted space.


The wall wasn't damaged or even touched.

In the end five fence posts and one gate post were pulled in about half an hour.