The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Techniques and skills => Topic started by: NorthEssexsmallholding on May 18, 2011, 06:08:34 pm
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I was going to use old fashioned creosote to treat my fence stakes but after reading up on it a bit it put me off. Its a fence for my chickens and its next to my vege plot, dont fancy any of those chemicals leaching into the soil.
So now I'm trying to find something a bit more environmentally friendly, want something that will preserve the wood without being too harmful.
Anyone know of anything half decent?
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I was going to use old fashioned creosote to treat my fence stakes but after reading up on it a bit it put me off. Its a fence for my chickens and its next to my vege plot, dont fancy any of those chemicals leaching into the soil.
So now I'm trying to find something a bit more environmentally friendly, want something that will preserve the wood without being too harmful.
Anyone know of anything half decent?
You cant buy creosote anymore but the repacement 'creote' or some such is supposedly more enviromentally friendly,
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I was going to make my own with old engine oil and diesel but thought against it after reading up on it. I think the creosote substitute is just a watered down version.
I'll add that since its only 20 posts that Im treating that I can consider doing something that would not be done on a large scale.
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coley can you not get coal tar creosote any more what do the GPO use to treat there new poles
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You can still buy creosote. They made it illegal to sell it to joe public but a legitimate business person may still buy it albeit in larger amounts. They sell it where I work in 25 litre drums. There is no requirement for the seller to establish wether the customer is a business user or not.
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I read that it leaches into the soil and then can get into the food chain, thats what put me off using it. But you never know what to believe any more.
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after posting i googled it and got the safety reports pages and pages of scientific experiments and round the world bad reports of people swalloing it well would you ingest it dont think so it would have woried me if they said pole erectors had a high incidence of dropping down dead but no unless i have missed that part :farmer:
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If you read any of the old books about poultry keeping they all tell you to give chicken houses a good dose of creosote to preserve the wood and to rid and or prevent mites. Never heard of any problems with it. Must take a while for the smell to go though.
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yeah its good for that but I'm talking about it leaching into the ground through my posts, into the soil and then into the veg and grass, just dont like that thought.
ANyway after much searching I found a product which is environmentally friendly, its called green leaf lifetime treatment, I think it originates from Canada, water based and non toxic, one application treats the wood for life. It does something to the structure of the wood to stop it ever rotting, genius.
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Just bought creosote in 5 litre containers from Wickes for the shed. I think the point is that its the unfriendliness of the stuff which makes it a preservative. Had some pressure treated environmentally friendly fence posts that have rotted in under 4 years.
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I was once told that the choice is between treated soft wood posts or untreated hard wood posts. I think they said that the treatment should make the soft wood last about half as long as the untreated hard wood (ie, 10 and 20 years respectively.) Some areas used to grow a lot of chestnut for fencing but now we only seem to grow softwoods.
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I have seen advertised somewhere, possibly in the NFU comic, a plastic wrap for fence posts which is claimed to extend their life dramatically.
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You can still get untreated chestnut posts they sell them where I work. They're about the same price as softwood but are a bit trickier to use as many of them aren't very straight. They're from coppiced woodland so fine for all the tree huggers as they are, like, sustainable, man.
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I was going to make my own with old engine oil and diesel but thought against it after reading up on it. I think the creosote substitute is just a watered down version.
Thats what I generally use, lasts for ages and the stuff that drips off kills the weeds plus it stops the shetlands from chewing the top bars
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If you don't have too many posts to put in you can do the following, which I did with softwood posts 17 years ago - and they are still going strong ! Set the posts out where you can get to turn them easily, using a blowtorch, go all round the points to the depth they are to be driven into ground + 6" char them till they are just slightly charcoal like, then drive them in - they'll last for years. :)
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it is not the part that is in the ground that rots it is the part just above ground level that rots as it is exposed to dampnes and drying out
just the same as all the old trees that are buried in peat bogs for hundreds of years with no treatment :farmer:
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i put them in last week, I used this treatment for life stuff, i put some pea shingle in the hole in between layers of soil, they feel pretty solid. I have a few that were pressure treated and creosoted, so it will be interesting to see which ones last the longest.