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What we have been up to the last few weeks on and off is pulling down a huge grapeyard vineyard enclosure we don't need and the wood was rotting in.

1st photo of where we took it down so you can see how huge this thing is -

grapeyard enclosure taken down.JPG


2nd photo of firewood we cut up from not so good timber from the grapeyard vineyard enclosure top and base where there were a few garden beds -

grapeyard enclosure firwood.JPG


And finally the upright timber 10 - 14' posts we dug out, heavy duty chicken wire and further across and behind the rolls of wire out of the picture is a whole stack of galvanised piping and fittings too that we saved for building our garden bed enclosure with -

grapeyard enclosure salvaged building materials and wire.JPG
 
No they are untreated posts @The Lazy L they are made of most likely Red Gum or ironbark which termites don't particularly favour but over time they will attack it as they have done here. If you look at the rounds we cut in the firewood picture and the cross section you will see how red the wood is from the posts. They are natural eucalypt trees found in the area.

Oh I will add here too is that you can tell if the posts are treated as all treatments for termites etc turn the wood a bluey green colour too here in Australia anyway. But always good to check so you don't poison yourself with your winter fires.
 
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@Bacpacker you are right it is a lot of work considering the ground is hard river silt when dried on the surface but worth it to have something that won't fall down or be a projectile in a bad storm. Bonus is we have lots of good building materials to build our new chook pen and garden enclosure with without spending any money on construction materials.
 
Sewingcreations15 said:
No they are untreated posts

Oh I will add here too is that you can tell if the posts are treated as all treatments for termites etc turn the wood a bluey green colour too here in Australia anyway. But always good to check so you don't poison yourself with your winter fires.
Click to expand...

Here in the US treated post are also called "Criso Posts" short for Creosote treated post. Electrical power poles, rail road ties, pallets and fence post used by farmers were treated with Creosote and other chemicals for over 100 years... well into the 90's.

These treatments usually included a heavy dose of "Arsenic". The arsenic protected them from just about anything that crawled or walked. The use of arsenic wasn't discontinued until 2003.

I cringe when I see anyone use an old treated post in a garden or anywhere near food or medicinal plants or use such wood for firewood. I know where there is a beautiful patch of Yarrow, around the base of an old electrical pole... I won't touch those plants despite the fact it's the largest and most accessible patch of yarrow within 30 miles of here.

Example… about 10 years ago I was making and selling high quality charcoal at the farmers market. One night I clicked on a youtube video, a guy showing people how to make charcoal from old wooden pallets.

They weren’t treated with creosote but by their color I knew his pallets were treated, most likely with arsenic.

I emailed this moron and politely included some informative links about what treatments pallets received. I promptly got a rude “You don’t know what your talking about” reply… sad…
 
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