Fence glossary · Installation
Footing
The concrete or compacted base a fence post is set into. Its depth, diameter and drainage decide whether the fence holds its line, because a fence footing resists wind load and gate weight trying to rotate the post — not just the dead weight of the panels above it.
A fence footing is fighting overturning, not compression. Wind pushes on a six-foot solid panel and the post tries to pivot in the ground; the footing's job is to spread that leverage across enough soil to stop it. Diameter therefore matters as much as depth — a narrow footing in a deep hole has less to push against than a properly sized one. The working rule in the trade is a hole roughly three times the post dimension across, carrying at least a third of the post's above-ground height below grade, and always below the local frost line, whichever is deeper.
Gate posts are a separate calculation and get treated as one. A gate hangs its whole weight off one side of a single post, and every open-and-close cycle works that post in the same direction. Gate posts and corner posts want a larger, deeper footing than the line posts, and a wide driveway gate frequently wants a heavier post section as well. When a gate starts dragging on the ground a year after installation, the hinge is rarely the problem — the post has moved, and that is a footing that was never sized for the load.
Drainage is the detail that gets skipped. In this territory's clay, a footing poured into a bowl-shaped hole and finished flush with grade is effectively a bathtub holding water against the post. Crowning the concrete slightly above grade so it sheds, and setting a base of compacted stone under the post so water has somewhere to go, are both small steps that add years. Concrete also needs to cure before it takes load, which is why panel work is a separate day rather than the same afternoon.
