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| Setting a fence post |
If you've ever put up a fence, say your typical 6-foot privacy fence, you know the drill: lay it out, set the posts, install the stringers, put on the pickets, install the gate, clean up your mess. G. K., having obviously neither built a fence nor watched one being built, has a different idea. Let's see some of G.K.'s dumbassery in action:
- "Place a small marker flag where the fence will start. Place another flag at the end of the fence section. Stretch the string line between the two points and pull it taunt..." Two questions, G: 1) how do you tie a string to a "small marker flag" and 2) how does a string "taunt" someone?
- "Use the tape measure to lay out the positions of the posts. The fence manufacture will have this information." Huh? Did you mean "spacing"? and aren't you the "fence manufacture" since you're building it? We're confused...
- "Dig a hole at every flag placement as deep as you can with the shovel... Use the rock bar to loosen the dirt and the posthole digger to remove it from the hole. Repeat this until you reach the proper depth. Generally this can range from 24 inches to 36 inches deep. This too will depend on the fence manufacturer's specifications." There you go with manufacturer's instructions again! Idiot: the length of the post in the ground is a factor of the type of fence, the height of fence, and the depth of the frost line. Plus, you use a post-hole digger to dig holes, not just to remove dirt loosened with a rock bar. Idiot.
- "Place all the posts in the hole and mix the concrete using the wheelbarrow and hoe. Use the 24-inch hand level to level each post on both sides of the post as you add the concrete. You will have to go back as the concrete mix sets up and double-check the post for level..." You did mean "holes," didn't you? We've been through this leveling the posts business before - you stake them, not just stick them in the ground. Moron!
- "Nail the fence frame 2-by-4s to the appropriate centerline measurements provided by the fencing manufacturer...Generally this will be every 24 inches on center from the ground level to the top of the fence. These fence frame 2-by-4 nailers will be what you nail the fence picket boards into to keep them in place." There you go with the manufacturer - again! By the way, they aren't called "fence frame nailers," they're called "stringers." Bozo.
- "Attach a fence picket board at each end of the fence section. Stretch the string line from each picket board on top of the board. This line created by the string will be the top-level line of each fence picket board." We're not sure why you'd need to attach a "fence picket board" (by which you apparently mean "picket") to stretch the line, since most people would just hammer in a nail at the correct height. We had one helluva hard time figuring out what that second sentence means, by the by. Maybe the content editor should have read it a bit more closely...
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| G.K. stops there: no instructions on nailing up the pickets, since she'd apparently met her minimum word count. Our staff fencer was heard to observe, "thank heavens..." So there's your Dumbass of the Day, people! For what it's worth, this particular article turns out to be a twofer: at the bottom, you'll find a comment submitted by an even dumber Dumbass, one Thomas Scott Murray. Thomas says, "Concrete, if used, should be placed in the hole and set overnight BEFORE THE POST GOES INTO THE HOLE [shouting Murray's]." This left all of us at the Antisocial Network very puzzled: we couldn't figure out how THE POST WOULD GO IN THE HOLE once the concrete has set overnight... |
¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was ehow.com/how_4536838_install-wood-fences.html
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