Can a leaning fence be straightened?
Sometimes. If the post is sound and the footing has worked loose in soft ground, the post can be plumbed up and re-set in fresh concrete. If the post has rotted through at the soil line, straightening it achieves nothing, because there is no sound timber left to hold. Dig around the base and test the timber before anyone quotes for pushing it back.
Three different faults produce the same lean, and only one of them can be pushed back. A footing that has worked loose in soft ground leaves a post that rocks with a ring of movement in the soil, and that post can be re-set. A post rotted through at the soil line pivots on the spot while the concrete stays put, and no amount of straightening fixes it. A racked panel on plumb posts is a rail or fixing problem. Clay ground shrinks in a dry summer and swells when saturated, which loosens footings that were sound when they went in.
A proper re-set is more than pushing and packing. The panels come out, the ground is dug back around the footing, the post is braced plumb in both directions, and enough of the old concrete is removed to get a full new collar around the post. Postcrete goes in at one bag per post, sets in five to ten minutes and takes panels back about ten minutes later. Depth is worth checking while the hole is open. 600mm is the common UK figure, and some installers work to a third of the post length instead.
The economics usually decide it. Once the panels are off and the old footing is broken out, the labour is nearly the same whether the old post goes back in or a new one does, and breaking out that footing is £50 to £100 per post on its own. Straightening only saves money where the post itself is still sound. Our repairs run £60 to £150 per repair excluding VAT. Where three or four posts on a run all need attention, ask for a replacement quote alongside, because published guidance puts the tipping point at repair quotes over £500 to £600 for five or six panels.
A fence that leans again after a re-set is telling you something about the site. Solid closeboard takes the full wind load, and an exposed run puts all of that into the posts. The fixes are structural: three horizontal rails rather than two above 1.2m, shorter bays, concrete posts, and gravel boards to keep timber off wet ground. Closeboard gives you the bay width as a design choice, with post centres set anywhere up to about 3.0m, whereas panel fencing is locked to the 1.83m panel. On a windy boundary, shorter bays are the cheapest insurance available.
More in repairs and storms, or browse all 36 questions on the FAQ index.
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