Fence glossary · Structure
Terminal post
Any post that ends a run of fence — an end post, a corner post or a gate post. Terminal posts carry the pull of tensioned fabric or the weight of a gate, so they are larger in diameter, set deeper and footed heavier than the line posts between them.
On a chain link fence the fabric is stretched between terminals and fastened with a tension bar held by bands, which means every pound of tension in that run lands on two posts. Nothing in the middle of the run carries it. That is why a terminal is a heavier section of pipe in a bigger footing, and why a corner — pulled from two directions at once — is the post most likely to lean if it was set like a line post. Long runs and corners on commercial work get braced back to the first line post for exactly this reason.
Gate posts are terminals under a different kind of load. A gate hangs off one side and works as a lever every time it swings, so the post is being pulled out of plumb continuously rather than steadily. A gate post that moves half an inch at the top is a gate that no longer latches, which is the single most common repair call we take on an older fence. Depth, footing size and plumb at set time decide whether that happens.
The same logic applies in wood and vinyl even though nothing is under tension. The end and gate posts are the ones that see load and the ones that show movement, so they take a heavier post, a steel or aluminum insert in a vinyl system, and a deeper footing below the frost line. In saturated clay ground the footing also wants somewhere for water to go, because a post sitting in a concrete cup full of water is a post that heaves.
