Setting Fence Posts, the Dummies Version

Braces set at right angles, Amelia...

There are two different kinds of people in the world: the ones who've built a fence and the ones who haven't. If they have any sense, when people in group two decide to join group one, they'll buy a book about how to build fences. If they don't buy a book, however, they'll find themselves at the mercy of internet freelancers – people who, though they're not part of group one, write fence-building instructions anyway. That's how you end up with half-baked articles like the one Amelia Allonsy posted at Leaf Group's SFGate.com, "The Best Way to Set a Post for a Shadow Box Fence & Keep it Straight."

Allonsy (that's probably not her real name: allons-y is, after all, French for "let's go!"), whose greatest strengths appear to be in cooking, found herself a fairly good resource and cribbed furiously. Sure, she got the basics down pat: the usual one-third the length of the post, gravel at the bottom for drainage, stake the post... but wait: it's during that "stake the post" step that Amelia's lack of real-life experience with fences becomes obvious. Her instructions?

4. Set the bottom one-third of the post in the hole. Hold a level against the side of the post and adjust it until plumb. Enlist a helper to hold the post in position with the level against the side while you brace the post.
5. Cut two pieces of two-by-four to 4-foot lengths for each post.
6. Place the first two-by-four piece against one side of the posts, running the board diagonally so the opposite end meets the ground. Nail the two-by-four to the post, using 4-inch nails. Drive a stake into the ground beside the end of the two-by-four that touches the ground and nail the board to the stake. Alternatively, you can wedge the loose end of the two-by-four into the ground to hold it in place.
7. Install a second brace on the side of the post opposite the first brace. If the post doesn't feel sufficiently steady after adding two braces, cut two more braces and add them to the remaining two sides of the post.

See the problems? We do! Some of them are, The post isn't plumb unless you check it in the two vertical planes. Amelia's only checking it in one Why 2-by-4s? this isn't framing, just staking (obviously, her reference said to). And why only four feet long? And why didn't you cut them before starting instead of while your poor helper is standing there? Shouldn't you, we dunno, check the post for plumb before moving on? "Opposite" the other stake? No, dummy, at right angles to the first stake! Plus, you have to keep checking the post for plumb...

After Amelia finally releases that poor, tired helper, she explains how to set the posts in cement:

"Fill in the hole around the post with wet concrete mix. Alternatively, you can fill the hole with dry concrete mix and add water on top of the dry mix until it is thoroughly wet, but not soupy."

Umm, inquiring minds what to know, shouldn't you mix the water and cement instead of just '[adding] water on top of the dry mix"? Sure you should!
For her failure to understand how to get a fence post plumb, for her failure to understand how to mix cement, for her over-engineered fence posts, for her out-of-order instructions, and mostly for her gall in trying to write instructions for something she's never done; Amelia Allonsy is our Dumbass of the Day – again (award number four).

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