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Talking with a ranch owner in Montana made me rethink how I set gate posts
I was out measuring for a 12 foot driveway gate near Bozeman last week, and the guy told me he'd rather have a crooked gate that swings smooth than a perfectly plumb one that binds up in the wet season. He showed me how his old posts had shifted over 5 years because the concrete base was too rigid for the soil type around here. Anybody else run into situations where you have to compromise on the look to make the function last longer?
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lilys815mo ago
Respectfully, plumb posts don't bind if you dig deep enough in the first place.
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avery6295mo ago
@lilys81 I hear you on digging deep enough, but sometimes the soil just does what it wants. I've seen posts set way down in clay that still shifted over time because the ground swells uneven when it gets wet. The old ranch guy's point about a swinging gate versus a plumb one makes sense to me, especially if you're dealing with freeze-thaw cycles. Function over form is a hard lesson for some of us to learn, but it sticks once you've had to rehang a gate twice in one year.
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