Concrete or timber fence posts: which should I choose?

Timber posts fail in a narrow band at the soil line, where the wood cycles between saturated and dry and every fungus in the garden gets a foothold. The post above ground looks fine, the post below ground looks fine, and the 100mm in between turns to fibre. That is why a fence that seems solid in March can rock in September, and why the repair is always a post rather than a panel.

On the ground around Cheltenham the case for concrete is stronger than the national average. Much of the Severn Vale, including most of Gloucester and the low-lying parts of Tewkesbury, sits on Charmouth Mudstone: heavy clay that holds water against a post right through winter, then shrinks away from it in a dry summer. A timber post in that ground is being asked to do the hardest version of the job.

The counter-case is honest and worth stating. Concrete posts are visible, grey and industrial, and against Cotswold stone or a Regency rear elevation some clients simply do not want them. Where the look matters more than the interval between replacements, we fit pressure-treated timber posts to Use Class 4, keep every cut end sealed, and put a concrete gravel board underneath so the boards themselves never touch soil. That is the compromise that actually works.

There is also a middle option people rarely hear about: timber panels or boards in concrete posts with a concrete gravel board. You keep the warmth of timber where you see it, and remove the timber entirely from the part of the fence that touches the ground. It is the specification we fit most often, and it is why our quotes price concrete and timber posts side by side rather than assuming.

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