How to fix fence plinth bowing?

[Joshuam08]

Hi all, the plinths on the bottom of our fence are bowing towards us as the neighbour's landscaper didn't dig his property down and is using the plinth as a retaining wall for soil and pebbles. I know the proper fix is to probably remove the fence and do a new fence with a retaining wall as the base but the fence is only a year old and neither I or the neighbour feel like paying for a new fence. Is it possible to remove this plinth and replace it with a sleeper to hopefully get a longer life out of this existing fence? This is an old photo, it's bowing a lot more now!

[EricL]

Hello @Joshuam08 

It's definitely possible to replace the plinth with a sleeper to provide more support. Please keep safety in mind when removing the old plinth as the soil behind the plinth will be pushing it towards you, make sure to grip firmly to prevent the plinth from snapping towards you when removed. It will be necessary to dig under the fence to provide more space for the sleeper as it will be much bigger than the plinth that is currently in place. I also recommend using Jack 450mm Heavy Duty Steel Sleeper Peg Flat Stake at the front to help support the sleeper and prevent movement.

Let me tag our experienced members @Dave-1 and @Nailbag for their recommendations.

If you have any other questions we can help with, please let us know.

Eric

[Dave-1]

Good Afternoon @Joshuam08 

Pretty much the same thoughts and solution as what @EricL has described. The thicker sleeper will also hide any bowing more so. With the higher soil side of your neighbours it may leed to a shorter overall lifespan of the fence. The sleep will also help extend that shorter life span as it will take the strain as teh timber decays.

Dave

[Nailbag]

Hi @Joshuam08 

It's actually a fairly easy fix, but needs to be done from the neighbours side as they have obviously got some form of ground work pressing up against the plinth. This needs to be dug away and needs to remain that way. You should be able to simply push the board back inline and then drive a couple of 450mm timber or gal metal fence posts evenly spaced to hold it back in place.

Fences and fence plinth are not retaining walls. So, if the neighbour need to retain soil or whatever it is, they need to install a retaining wall in front of the fence at their expense.

Nailbag

[Joshuam08]

I 100% agree with you that removing the soil would be the best solution but unfortunately it’s not really possible. As you can see from my photo, we are on small blocks and our houses are very close to the fence. On the neighbours side, they have about 1 metre of concrete path around the house and then maybe 200-300mm of soil/pebbles. If we dug it out we would be essentially removing everything from the edge of their concrete and leave a drop of about 150-200mm. Can a retaining wall fit in a 200mm gap? With such a small gap my hope was to replace the plinth with sleepers to get a few more years of life from the fence and then probably look at replacing the fence and adding a retaining wall to the bottom, with the neighbour covering the retaining wall cost. 

In summary, small blocks aren’t great! Neighbours whole property sits maybe 200-300mm above us and we built our ground up to meet the fence and they should’ve come down a bit but their trades left everything high (probably to avoid excavating), even our weepholes are currently covered by pebbles (no soil thankfully, I like to imagine it can still breath at least a little!) on their zero boundary. Thankfully we have a good relationship and can hopefully work out a good solution.