Shoutout to the guy who showed me how to fix a leaning gate with just a shovel and a pipe

I spent two years replacing posts on gates that sagged until a old timer at the job site in Tulsa showed me his trick. He digs a little trench on the hinge side, slides a 4 foot piece of steel pipe under the post, then pushes down on the pipe to lift the gate back level. Takes maybe 15 minutes and costs nothing if you have scrap pipe around. I tried it on a 6 foot wooden gate last month and it worked perfect. Why do so many guys jump straight to pulling the post out when they could just adjust the bottom in the dirt? Anyone else got a faster fix for a sagging gate?

2 comments

2 Comments

nancy_miller2d ago

Oh man, I used to be the guy who'd dig up the whole post and mix concrete every time a gate sagged. Spent way too many weekends on that nonsense. Then a neighbor showed me the pipe trick and I felt like a total idiot for all the work I did before. Tried it on my back gate last spring and it took less than 20 minutes with no mess. I still can't believe how simple it is once you know it works.

ellis.felix2d ago

Yeah @nancy_miller I felt the SAME way when I figured it out. But hold on, you said "lift the gate back level" which is close but not quite right. The trick is you actually want to OVER-lift it a little a couple inches past level, because the dirt will settle back and the gate will drop some over the next few days. I learned that the hard way when I did it perfect the first time and two weeks later it was sagging again. That extra bump past level is the secret to making it last.

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