My wife asked me to build her a fence two summers ago in Saint-Lambert, Quebec. I promised to build her the best fence...“ever”. Unfortunately, we've been getting severe wind storms regularly here in Montreal and that first spring witnessed winds of 70 Km/h almost destroying her lovely fence. So, I decided to design a solution to stabilize any fence using a 4x4 wooden post loosened by the effects of wind and soggy soils. The retrofit design allows installation without having to do any digging or disassembly of the fence what-so-ever, a real time saver. Last fall, we had an ever stronger wind event (100 Km/h all day) and my solution worked just fine, so I'd like to share it with this group and perhaps make a little money together by saving time and backbreaking effort.
My patent pending invention uses a principal of biomimicry akin to a foot at the bottom of a leg, converting lateral forces into vertical compressional force, so we decided to fittingly call it “fence cleat”. Since the ground doesn't compress very well, you end up with a significantly more robust grounded and stable fence post. The solution takes about 5 minutes per fence post to install on any existing 4x4 fence post (regardless of its original installation method i.e. cement, crushed stone or modern fence spikes) and all you need is a shovel, mallet and screwdriver drill for tools. 🙂