My son has cut some good poplar trees from our woods, and is working on building a fence for the horse. We thought we'd be able to treat our posts with creosote, but found that it has been banned. We'd like to find a good substitute. Does anyone know of an effective and reasonable alternative for treating fenceposts?

-- Cathy (Queenbe2000@yahoo.com), July 27, 2000

Answers

I bought a wood preservative from my local True Value hardware store. It comes in a 1 gallon can, is green colored and called simply "Wood Preservative". If I remember right it cost about $14 per can (it goes a long way)and I painted it on the part of the posts that went into the ground. It certainly seemed to help as I recently pulled up a couple of posts. They were not rotted at all and this was about 4 years later. If you like I will get the manufacturer's name next time I am at the hardware store.

-- Marci (ajourend@libby.org), July 27, 2000.

Poplar is about as poor a wood for posts as you can get, light, yes but they will probably rot in short order. But if you must use them, let them dry out for a season so they will draw in whatever you decide to treat them with. I use old motor oil and kerosene for above ground posts and rails but mostly I use iron T-posts.

-- Hendo (OR) (redgate@echoweb.net), July 28, 2000.

Wood preservatives are often coloured green by the arsenic in them.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), July 28, 2000.

I once stuck the ends of garden posts (very old cedar from a bridge which was torn down) into a campfire. I'd been told that this keeps fungus at bay for a while. The fence is still standing, after fifteen years, although some of the posts had to be attached to metal tee stakes after ten or twelve years.

We have very wet, cool winters, and very dry, warm summers, so stuff doesn't rot as fast as some pl

-- jumpoffjoe (jumpoffjoe@yahoo.com), July 29, 2000.

Even though I probably broke all kinds of enviromental laws doing it, When putting up a fence for my parents in Oregon, I soaked the bottom ends of old pine fence posts for a week in a 55 gallon storage drum half full of old motor oil. The posts are still doing fine 15 years later, I've also used old motor oil on the wooden handles of my wheel barrow after they got dried out and grey and I started worrying about them rotting (We were living in Panama City, Fl at the time).

I dont have any real proof that it works well as a wood preservative, but my Grandpa used to use old motor oil the same way and it's seemed to work so far...

-- Dave (Ak) (daveh@ecosse.net), July 30, 2000.

CATHY....POPLAR IS NOT VERY RESISTANT TO ROT.I`D TREAT IT WITH A BORATE SOLUTION[NON-TOXIC AND SAFER THAN TABLE SALT].OLD TIMERS USED TO BURN THE POINTED ENDS OF FENCE POSTS TO HELP THEM LAST LONGER.CONSIDER COATING THE LOGS AROUND GROUND LEVEL THIS IS WHERE THEY ROT.

CORDially YOURS CORDWOODGUY

-- cordwoodguy (cordwoodguy@n2teaching.com), June 22, 2001.

I thought poplar posts would not rot but rather sprout and become poplar trees!

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), June 23, 2001.

2 parts roofing tar, 1 part mineral oil, kerosene or diesel. tar driveway sealer thinned out a bit works too.

-- April (atobias@yahoo.com), June 23, 2001.