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Talked to an old timer who taught me how to read frost on posts
Ngl, I've been putting up fences for about 5 years now and thought I had everything figured out. Last week I was setting posts on a job in Portland and this guy who's been doing it since the 80s walks over and just says 'you're gonna have to redo that one come spring.' He pointed out how the frost was forming different on one post than the others, said that means the hole wasn't deep enough on that side. Honestly, I never even thought to look for that sign before. Has anyone else run into hidden clues like that when digging?
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miam752mo agoMost Upvoted
That dust settling different is another one he tipped me off to.
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tara_jones942mo ago
@miam75 that's interesting. So is he saying the dust itself is different, or just how it settles? Like, did he notice a specific color or texture to it that made him tip you off?
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jenniferw822mo ago
Learned that trick myself a few years back from an old timer up in Maine and honestly it saved me a ton of headaches since. @tara_jones94, the way he showed me was the frost would be thicker on one side of the post than the others, and if you look close the frost lines will actually curve different depending on how deep the hole is. I started checking my posts that way and caught a couple shallow ones before they even had a chance to heave over winter. Now I always walk the whole line in the morning after a hard frost to spot any posts that look off, beats checking them all with a tape measure every time.
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