GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

06-07-2003, 07:32 PM

(Nick Maclaren) wrote:

Hello Nick

There isn't one, sorry. Wood rots in contact with water.
NM It's not the water, as such. Both elm and oak will last for
NM centuries under water. The problem is the combination of
NM wet and oxygen just below soil level that allows fungi to
NM flourish.

Fair enough.

Untreated softwood lasts 5-10 years. (Dependant on soil
conditions) Treated, 10-20 years. (Larch can do this
untreated) Some hardwoods (split chestnut, oak, willow)
will last 50+ years untreated.
NM In the UK, just below soil level? You jest, sirrah!

Nope - softwood is my own experience (been fencing for about 15
years). Hardwood - from rough dates given by other fencers, locals -
you'll have to wait a few more years if you want my own experience of
it though.

NM From experience, softwood lasts 1-2 years untreated, and
NM chestnut or oak sapwood (the former well creosoted) about 5.

Good god man, what are you doing to the poor stuff?

Even sawn untreated softwood, which rots fastest of all (opposed to
round, split or half-round) lasts longer than 5 years. Round untreated
softwood posts I put in ~15 years ago are still standing soundly (At
Greenaway house estate - to replace fences completely smashed after
the '87 storms). I know they're untreated because we cut them
ourselves from local Douglas Fir, Scots Pine and Larch.

Done a fair bit of fencing on Dartmoor, even across bogs - possibly
the most hostile environment in the South; where split chestnut lasts
for 30+ years (even if it looks like a hundred years old after a
single year). Oak's also used, often split, sometimes sawn, and that
lasts for almost as long.

NM I haven't got much experience of the heartwood, but it
NM certainly lasts a lot better. Yew is the ONLY British tree
NM that I know of where the sapwood will survive being embedded
NM just below damp soil level for more than about 5 years.

True, Yew is an exceptional tree. The only one (AFAIK) that doesn't
rot at all, hence the excessive age of some of 'em. Tad tricky to get
it in enough volume to be commercially considered though.

--
Simon Avery, Dartmoor, UK Ý http://www.digdilem.org/